


Keep the Wolves Outside by Living Well

by amycarey



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Ghosts, Gothic, Romance, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-01-07 16:04:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12236148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amycarey/pseuds/amycarey
Summary: An under-qualified nanny. A troubled child. A mysterious, prickly employer. A small town teeming with secrets. A love story. A ghost story.A Gothic Romance AU.





	1. In which our heroine is given a hearty Storybrooke welcome

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coalitiongirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/gifts).



> Title from ‘Company of Wolves’ by Angela Carter.  
> Thanks to Swansaloft for doing a reassurance read-through of the first chapter. Though this story will use tropes from a range of Gothic literature, it doesn't require you to know Gothic literature to enjoy it.
> 
> For Mari, with affection.

_"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine.”_

_― Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen _

No one who had ever seen Emma Swan in her infancy would have believed her born to be a nanny. Her situation in life (unwanted foster kid predicted most likely to end up in prison), her parents (who had left her abandoned on the side of a highway in rural Maine), her own dubious character (scrappy, troubled, prone to biting as a toddler), were all equally against her.

She hated books, hated school, hated the fact that she had no control over even the most basic elements of her life.

And yet, aged 28, here she is, packing up her matchbox Boston apartment to move to some hick town in Maine to be the nanny for a kid she’s never even met.

There isn’t much to pack, truth be told, beyond her sparse wardrobe. Her GED, a bottle of top quality scotch a client bought her in thanks for saving his daughter from an online stalker a few months back, the baby blanket she’d been found wrapped in 28 years ago. She traces the purple embroidery spelling out her name in neat cursive, sighs, and places it at the top of the box.

Then she shrugs on the red leather jacket hanging on the back of the chair, picks up the box, and leaves.

She doesn’t look back. There is nothing to look back at.

***

She has owned her yellow VW beetle since she was 17, though ‘owned’ is perhaps too strong a word given that she’d actually stolen it back then. It’s hers legally now though and, despite its battered appearance and mileage, it has not yet let her down. The car is the closest thing she has to a best friend, the only thing she has ever been able to rely on. It’s mid September, the start of Fall, and rust orange leaves blossom from the gnarled tree branches lining the empty roads. The sky spreading before her is grey, and she shivers, the heat broken in her car and the temperature outside cool even for September.

She glances over at her GPS. _Continue on along the 295._ There is a sign for a roadside diner up ahead and she thinks about stopping, her stomach grumbling in agreeance with the stray thought, but she’s late as it is; she’d like to get there before nightfall, take a look around the place that will be her new home for the next little while, get the lay of the land, before starting work the next day.

_Storybrooke._

When Ursula at the temping agency had told her the name of the town she’d be moving to if she took the position, Emma’s first response had been to laugh. “Seriously?” she’d said. “Is it down the road from Fantasy Land? Turn right at Rainbow Valley?”

Ursula had looked rather like she wanted to rescind the job offer.

Later that evening, she’d sat in the dive bar beneath her apartment building, nursing a beer, and had looked Storybrooke up. The only information about it, beyond a location on Google Maps, had been a couple of Yelp reviews of a local diner and bed and breakfast, called Granny’s, (‘5 stars - best grilled cheese on the East Coast’, ‘1 star - owner chased me off with a crossbow when I hit on the super hot waitress’) and a very dated website, with no pictures and scant information.

The location had been interesting though, just down the road from where she’d been found—and presumably left—as a child. There has always been a sick sort of draw to that roadside in Maine, though she has never actually been there. When she was a kid and didn't know any better, she had told herself stories about being the daughter of the fairy queen, abandoned in the human world to keep her safe from the evil that lurked in the magical one. She grew out of that story after the third foster family.

Still, the location felt like a sign. She had called Ursula the next morning to accept the job.

Emma blinks, exhaustion setting in, despite only having been driving for a couple of hours. She turns up the radio, Tracey Chapman’s voice soft and melancholy even through her tinny speakers, and she’s determined to pass the next two hours of driving without thinking, without letting her brain be overtaken with pointless ‘what ifs’ or ‘maybes’.

“You got a fast car,” she sings tunelessly along with the radio, “is it fast enough so we can fly away?”

Two hours later, she almost misses the large ‘Welcome to Storybrooke’ sign, appearing—or so it seems—out of nowhere. Instinctively, she slams on her brakes and gets out of the car to stretch her legs. The sky has darkened, sun shining weakly through the clouds, and leaves crunch under her boots. The road is lined with forest, and she feels this inexplicable urge to run into the woods, to never be found again.

This is where she was found; it could be where she is lost again.

She shivers and tugs her jacket closer around herself. Then she smiles, rolling her eyes at her own flight of fancy, and gets back into the car, starting the engine and beginning the slow drive into town.

It starts to rain just as she pulls up outside Granny’s Diner, which she feels must be an omen or something, and she runs into the diner holding her jacket over her head. “Hi!” the waitress says and, looking at her long legs, wolfish smile and bare midriff, Emma assumes she must be the waitress of the negative Yelp review. “Sit where you like.”

It’s practically empty, and Emma takes a seat at the bar, tapping her fingers against the Formica counter-top as she reads the menu. The rain is coming down thick and fast outside, and she’s glad now that she arrived a day early, that she has a night in the bed and breakfast upstairs to get herself together so that her employer and the kid’s first impression isn’t her drenched with rain, boots dirtying the front door step. Regina Mills seems like she’ll be particular about that sort of thing, judging by the email Emma had received last week.

_Dear Ms Swan,_ Emma had read, finding herself unbalanced by the formal address.

_My name is Regina Mills, and, all going well, I will be your employer as of next week. Usually, I am not comfortable hiring someone sight unseen, especially not someone who will be caring for my son. However, circumstances have forced my hand, with the sudden loss of our current nanny, and a lack of local prospects, and I am forced to rely on Ursula’s services._

_I have done a thorough background check and your first month will be on a trial basis only. If you do not meet my expectations, be assured that I will not hesitate to terminate your employment. My son is my world; should any harm come to him, I will destroy you._

_Kind Regards,_

_Regina Mills_

Weirdly, the email had endeared Emma to her crotchety employer. She couldn't help but picture a foster mom she once had when she thought of Regina Mills. She had imagined her over the past week as a WASP-y, nervy woman. Regina Mills, she thought, would have hair so blonde that it was almost white, tied back into a sharp bun that gave her a makeshift facelift, and thin lips. She would seem like a Stepford wife, organising cocktail parties for her much older husband’s business clients and arranging the flowers, because only the very wealthy hire nannies. But the Stepford veneer would shift, disappear, in defence of her son where she would morph into a lioness, all claws and fury.

“Hey, what can I get you?” the waitress asks, puncturing her thoughts. Emma notices the nametag for the first time, Ruby written in red ink.

“Coffee,” she says. “And a grilled cheese. I hear they’re the best on the East Coast.”

“You’ve been on Yelp,” Ruby says, and grimaces. “Men are assholes.” Emma nods fervently. Then, Ruby changes tack, grinning broadly again. “You’re new! We never get anyone new here!”

“Emma,” Emma says, holding out a hand in what she realises too late is a weirdly formal gesture. “Just got a job in town. I start tomorrow.”

“Where—” Ruby says, and then stops. “Oh, of course! With Mayor Mills.”

_Mayor?_ That definitely wasn’t something Ursula had told her, nor was it something Regina Mills had brought up in her vaguely threatening email. “Guess so,” Emma says, trying to swallow her nerves. She has never been good with authority figures and mayor in a town like this is about as Authority as it gets. It changes things. “So, give me the scoop. You must know just about everything that goes on here.”

“Just about!” Ruby says. Then, she frowns. “No gossip though. Henry’s a cute kid, one of my favourite customers. Mayor Mills is,” and Emma definitely doesn’t imagine the lengthy pause here, “nice.”

“Nice?”

Ruby appears visibly uncomfortable now, shifting from one heeled foot to the other. “I’ll just go get your coffee,” she says, and practically runs to the kitchen.

Huh. Weird.

The grilled cheese, to give it its due, is excellent, and Emma has ordered a second with a side of fries, when a young woman in a skirt suit sits down beside her with a sigh, shrugging off her blazer and rolling up the sleeves of her cream blouse. “I hate Wednesdays,” she says slumping forward so her elbows rest against the countertop, and then turns. “You’re new! You must be Emma Swan.”

“News travels fast,” Emma says. She is starting to be uncomfortably reminded of being the perpetual new kid at school, has to resist the urge to check her tank top for stains, or her jeans for rips that aren't designer.

The woman crosses her legs, baring an expanse of toned brown thigh in the process. Pulling the clip out of her dark hair, she coils it and re-clips, and then says, “I’m Gwen, the mayor’s aide. And _you’re_ the sixth nanny she’s hired in half as many years. Trust me when I say Mayor Mills had better like you or I'm going to have to murder you myself.”

“Sixth?” Emma says, choking on the dregs of her coffee. “What’s _wrong_ with the kid?”

Gwen smiles, and gestures Ruby over. “Granny got any cider in? I think we’re going to need a couple of glasses of the good stuff for this.”

And so Gwen tells Emma stories. The first nanny got pregnant, nothing so strange about that. The second broke her leg, falling off a ladder, and wouldn’t come back to work. “No one knows why she was trying to get up on the roof at midnight,” Gwen says, pouring herself a second glass of the frankly outstanding cider and waving cheerfully at Ruby when she glares at her from over at the coffee pots.

The third nanny claimed the house gave her the creeps. “A real white lady hippy type,” Gwen says. “Kept talking about dark auras and bad vibes and soothing the soul of the disturbed house. Crap like that.”

“Sounds delightful,” Emma says, flagging down Ruby for a second glass of cider. “The fourth?”

“Got a job in Portland,” Gwen says, and then drinks. “Boring. But the fifth, she spread it round town that Henry’s a nutcase. You know, sees things that aren’t there, talks to himself, believes in ghosts. Mayor Mills ran her out of town.”

“But he _is_ okay, right?” Emma asks. She’s never nannied before, let alone a reportedly ‘crazy’ kid and, while it’s not the first time she’s felt like she might be in over her head, this is a whole other ball game. She swirls her glass of cider, staring down at the amber liquid sloshing against the sides of the glass.

“Henry’s great,” Gwen says. “Sensitive, imaginative. A little...introverted. He’s had a rough time this year, what with—” She stops, grabs one of Emma’s fries.

“What with?” Emma prompts.

“Nothing,” Gwen says. “It’s not my place. You’ll love him. He’s bright, caring, wants to be loved.”

Emma decides to leave it at that. She’s never really been one to listen to gossip, and knows all too well the impact rumours can have on a kid. “What about his mom?” she asks, but Gwen totally clams up at that.

“Mayor Mills is an inspiration,” she says firmly. “Hey, you should hear some of the stories about Storybrooke though.”

So Emma lets her tell them, with input from the gimlet-eyed woman in the kitchen and the little grouchy bearded guy at the end of the bar shouting out corrections to Gwen’s stories. She hears about werewolves roaming the woods around Storybrooke, about a madman with a scar all the way around his neck, like his head was chopped off, about the ghost of a witch who haunts the town. “She set fire to town hall last year,” Gwen says, eyes round and wide and totally believing.

Emma laughs at this. “Sure it wasn’t just faulty wiring?” she asks, but even Granny takes this story seriously.

“If you knew Mayor Mills, you’d know that’d _never_ be allowed to happen,” Granny says.

Emma has had several glasses of cider at this point and she slides off the stool, head spinning when she stands on two feet. “I think,” she says very distinctly, “I should get a good night’s sleep.”

Granny gives her the key to her room and she pays her bill, leaving what is probably an exorbitant tip but given they don’t seem to have changed their menu prices since the 80s, she doesn’t feel like she's lost money. The stairs to her room are rickety and creaky, the stairwell dark, and when she arrives in her room, the hideously floral wallpaper makes her want to throw up.

She kicks off her boots and jeans, and flops onto the bed. It’s definitely been a case of far too much information tonight, and she’s having a hard time keeping it straight. She'll figure it out though. Unless her trial run is a total fiasco, she could be here a while.  

As she drifts off, she thinks as she always does in a new place or when alcohol has allowed her to let her guard down of the baby boy, the one she never got to hold, the one who screamed like the world had personally wronged him when he’d been born, the one she sees in every ten year old kid.

She hopes he’s okay.

She hopes he’s with a mother who loves him like Regina Mills apparently loves her kid, a love fueled with fire and ice and rage and fists.

She hopes—


	2. In which Emma Swan meets a troubled yet charming child

 

_“I then and there took him to my heart for was something divine that I have never found to the same degree in any child—his indescribable little air of knowing nothing in the world but love.”_

_― The Turn of the Screw, Henry James _

She wakes up with a splitting headache to the sound of the clattering of pots and pans, and someone yelling about eggs. Groaning, she slides out of bed and staggers, eyes still half-shut, to the bathroom.

The best thing about the room at Granny’s is the shower, she decides, the pressure strong and the water hot almost to the point of being scalding. She lets the water run down her skin in rivulets and tries not to puke; she is never drinking again. She is never drinking cider again. She is never drinking with _Gwen_ again. She’s pretty sure her brain is going to explode, which is not exactly how she wants to feel when she meets her hard-ass employer who also happens to be the most powerful person in town. It was bad enough when she thought Regina was a Stepford wife but now? She sighs and squeezes her eyes shut.

The two-in-one shampoo and conditioner smells like peaches, so sickly sweet she retches as she lathers it through her hair, the smell becoming more and more pungent. Soap suds pool at her feet.

This is a _weird_ town.

Her fingers brush against the faint stretch marks on her stomach, and a pain shoots through her. That voice inside her whispers, _time to go time to leave time to move on_. She’s been trying to dim it since she turned eighteen, since she became independent, but it persists.

The water turns cold in an instant and, with the shock of it, her thoughts are pushed aside for more immediate concerns: clothing, dry hair, greasy food.

Ruby is serving again that morning, abominably cheerful, and she pours Emma a strong, black coffee without being asked. “You need eggs,” she says.

“I need to be taken out back and shot,” Emma grumbles, but Ruby only laughs.

“We’ll try the eggs first,” she says. “Granny has a shotgun if more urgent action is required.”

Eggs do revive her, thank God. She stupidly forgot to charge her phone the night before and it’s dead. “How do I get to Regina Mills’ place?” she asks.

“108 Mifflin Street,” Ruby says. “Head down Main Street, and take a left. You can’t miss it. Biggest place on the block.”

It’s cold and bright out, sharp wind grazing Emma’s cheeks, and the streets of Storybrooke are basically empty this early on a Saturday morning. She sees one man, walking a dalmatian, who nods at her but besides that she is left to herself.

Ruby was right. The house is easy to find. Emma gazes up at the Mifflin Street mansion—for there is no other word for it—and gulps down nerves. She’s not cut out for working for someone who lives like this. Too much affluence is terrifying to her; those families were always the worst, full of false kindness and ready to kick you out at the smallest error.

The mansion is wooden, painted white with black shutters on the windows, with a long straight path leading to the front door. The door is framed by columns, and the second-floor balcony is rounded, with an arch way leading to wide French doors. Emma imagines they lead to the master bedroom, and then wonders where she will be sleeping.

Probably the attic. That’s where the help lives in creepy old houses, right?

Topiaried bushes in pots stand by the doors, curved like scimitars, guarding it from intruders. There is no sign of movement from within, and it looks more like a postcard than a real house, a place where people might actually live. Emma shoves her car keys in her pocket, takes a deep breath, and walks forward, pushing the filigree iron gate open.

She pauses for a moment on the doorstep, traces the iron numbers on the front door, frowns. Nerves are overtaken by a rising irritation because, how _dare_ this house try and intimidate her?

She rings the doorbell, pressing down for just slightly too long because she feels like something like that will probably piss off Mayor Regina Mills with her perfect house and her perfect manicured lawn and her probably perfect, if somewhat disturbed, child and if she’s annoyed and defiant, she doesn’t have room to be scared or anxious—or so she tells herself.

From within, there is the sound of footsteps clattering and the door opens to reveal a small woman with dark, short hair, snow-pale skin and a beaming smile. “Hello!” she says. “You must be Emma!” And she holds out a hand.

Emma takes it, utterly discombobulated by the mismatch between the impression she has been given of Regina Mills and the terrifyingly cheerful woman before her. Her handshake is weak, and her nails short, painted a pale pink sheen. She is wearing a tailored dress with a bird print on it, and tiny, delicate pearl earrings, clothes that speak of money and privilege, but not of power. “Hi,” Emma says. “Sorry if I’m late…”

The woman smiles again—does she ever stop smiling?—and ushers Emma into the foyer of the house, wooden floors polished to an almost reflective sheen. Emma feels scruffy, has to resist the urge to scuff her boot against the floor. “You’re right on time,” she says. “We’ll get your stuff in a moment, but come in and have a cup of tea.”

She leads Emma to a kitchen that could be in a model home, surfaces gleaming. Everything is white. Everything shines. Everything is expensive. Emma wonders how a small boy can possibly live here. “You didn’t tell me you were the mayor, Ms Mills,” Emma says, standing in the doorway, and the woman almost drops the kettle she is filling.

Then she laughs, the sound almost musical. “Oh, honey, no!” she says. “Oh wow. That’s a first. I thought Regina had sent you an email.”

“My phone’s out of juice,” Emma says. She can’t help but be reassured that this Disney princess of a woman isn’t her new employer.

“Regina’s been called out of town, an emergency situation in Portland. She left at first light. I’m her step-daughter, Mary Margaret Blanchard. Apple cinnamon or Peppermint?”

“What? Oh, Peppermint,” Emma says, still shaken. She sits down at the kitchen island, booted feet perching on the rung of the stool, and rests her elbows on the countertop.

“Henry will be down soon, I imagine,” Mary Margaret says. “He’s just getting dressed. Anyway, Regina should be back in a few days, but obviously she couldn’t leave Henry by himself and, well, I was available…” She trails off for a moment. “Henry’s a wonderful boy,” she continues. “I teach fourth grade at the local elementary school and he’s actually in my class. Very clever and creative.”

“Cool,” Emma says, though Mary Margaret doesn’t seem to require an actual response.

“You’ll like it here, I think,” Mary Margaret continues. “I’ve lived in Storybrooke all my life. This used to be my family home.” She looks wistfully around the kitchen. “Regina has made some changes, of course.”

“Of course,” Emma says, making an effort to be polite. Mary Margaret’s incessant cheerfulness unnerves her more than all the veiled threats and helicopter mothers in the world. “So, it kind of surprises me that Mayor Mills isn’t here… She seemed pretty protective.”

“She’s furious that she had to go,” Mary Margaret says, stretching to reach for two mugs with a delicate filigree pattern on their surface.

“Was it a work thing?” Emma asks.

“Yes,” Mary Margaret says after a long pause. Her gaze is intent on the hot water pouring from the spout of the kettle. She’s lying; Emma’s got a kind of sixth sense about these sorts of things.

“So what—” But she is interrupted by a small voice from behind her.

“Are you Ms Swan?”

She turns, and sees him for the first time. Henry Mills is small, although Emma’s not had a lot to do with ten year olds since she was one herself so it’s entirely possible he is a veritable fourth grade giant. His face is pale, chin pointed and dominated by a beaky nose that Emma imagines he’ll probably grow into, and he’s squinting at her. His dark hair is still damp from the shower.

She shivers, meeting his eyes and seeing something heartbreakingly familiar in them. She’d been obsessed with ‘Peter Pan’ when she was a kid, had imagined herself a Lost Boy, and she sees in Henry a kindred spirit.

The kid observes her curiously, not saying anything, and Emma realises she hasn’t replied. “Emma’s fine,” she says finally.

He nods. “Want me to show you around?”

Emma looks over at Mary Margaret, who beams. “I think that’s a lovely idea, Henry,” she says. “I’ll make you a morning snack while we’re waiting.”

And so, Emma trails after Henry Mills. The tour is perfunctory almost, and Emma thinks, as she is shown through beautiful rooms with exquisite furnishings and tasteful artwork, _six nannies in half as many years._ She thinks, _mother absent for mysterious reasons._ She thinks, _where are the family photographs?_

“What’s in there?” she asks, pointing to a closed door.

“Mom’s study,” Henry says. “It’s strictly forbidden for _anyone_ to enter.” He sounds like he’s mimicking someone, and Emma can make an educated guess as to whom.

“So, I hear you’ve had a lot of people looking after you over the past few years,” she says as he takes her upstairs, resolutely refusing to hold the handrail of the staircase. “Sucks.”

He turns at the top of the stairs, and looks at her, surprised. “Yeah,” he says. His eyes narrow, appraising her carefully, before he seems to reach a very important decision. “Want to see my room?”

He leads her to a door, a plaque reading ‘Henry’s Room’ hanging on the door, emblazoned with a rocket ship and stars. “This is my room,” he says, and she follows him into the space.

The room is bright and large and cheerful, incongruous in contrast to the rest of the house, and the first thing she notices is the whole shelf of comic books. “Oh man,” she says, hand reaching out to touch them, before she remembers herself. “I would have _killed_ for these when I was your age.”

He leaps up onto the bed, feet dangling. “You can borrow them if you want,” he says. He picks up a large book on his bedside table, clutches it close to himself. “I don’t read them anymore.”

“Your tastes more sophisticated now?” she asks, teasing. “I’m sorry you’re being saddled with a nanny who has such hopelessly plebeian tastes.” She sits down beside him, on top of the blue plaid bedspread.

Henry frowns at her. “You’re weird.”

“Rude,” Emma says, but she grins, bumping him with her shoulder, and eventually Henry returns the smile. It’s tentative, but present, and she thinks she’s going to like the kid.

 

> ***

It’s quiet that night. The nanny’s room is in the west wing of the house, tastefully decorated in shades of beige, and she’s restless, having already unpacked her meagre belongings, her baby blanket folded and hanging over the back of the rocking chair, and the bottle of scotch stowed in her underwear drawer.

She hears Mary Margaret snoring lightly through the wall that separates her room from the guest room, and Henry went to bed hours ago. What did Henry say about the study? It’s strictly forbidden. Well, Emma’s never been much good at following directions.

She grabs her phone, using the faded light to guide her down the staircase. The door of the study creaks when she slides it open and she freezes but no one stirs. She flicks the light switch.

The walls are panelled in rich brown wood, and a large leather sofa takes up most of one wall. Another wall is covered in books; she scrolls the titles, surprised to discover they’re mostly classic novels— _Rebecca, The Woman in Black, The Turn of the Screw, Jane Eyre—_ and delighted by the low shelf laden with picture books. _Guess How Much I Love You_ appears particularly well worn.

Sitting at the desk, she notes the framed pictures, one of Henry’s school photographs, his smile broad and gappy, and the other a candid shot, a toddler who must be Henry sitting on the lap of a woman with a picture book open on his knees. He’s staring intently at the pages, one chubby finger pointing at the page, and the woman’s face is turned towards him, so all Emma can see is a slight frame dressed in jeans and a loose shirt, and bobbed dark hair.

This must be the mayor. She hasn’t even met her yet and she's confounding all Emma’s expectations: high-powered job, absent on important days, no husband  (because Emma had asked Mary Margaret about her father and found out he'd died before Henry was born), and now, brunette.

The picture is the first sign of anything personal in the house outside of Henry’s bedroom, and Emma suddenly feels as though she’s intruding on something intensely private.

This doesn’t stop her from stopping in on the master bedroom on her way back to her own room. The bedroom is large, the French doors to the balcony offering a view of the street, empty, and the sky, dappled with starlight. The full moon appears preternaturally large in the sky. The bedroom is just as impersonal as the rest of the house, a walk-in closet stuffed with blazers, tailored dresses, and far too many pairs of high heels in designer brands. At least, Emma thinks, the clothes match her expectations of Regina Mills. The furnishings are cream, and the moonlight spilling through the window creates a ghostly glow through the room.

She finds one more photograph here, a framed picture of a baby Emma can only assume is Henry, dressed up in a bear suit and staring anxiously into the camera. A hand supports him, the mayor’s Emma assumes, the nails painted a deep red.

Walking to the door, she stops for a moment at the full-length mirror in its ornate frame. She looks out of place in the opulence, and she feels her full insignificance for a moment. What’s she doing here? How could she possibly think—

She lets out a muted shriek when a shape moves behind her, the figure seeming to glide.

She whirls around. Nothing except the curtains billowing. A window has been left unlatched and the wind’s picked up. Heart pounding frantically, she closes the window.

There’s someone on the street. A woman, watching the house. Emma glares down at her and eventually she slips away into the inky black of the night.


	3. In which there is a thoroughly gothic meet-cute

_“If even the stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go, and announced—‘I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse.’”_

_— Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte _

After a restless night’s sleep, Emma wakes, determined to put the previous night before out of her mind. She had the creepy stories Gwen and the folks at the diner had told her in her head, that’s all it was. Instead, she takes the opportunity to try and bond with Henry. They spend Sunday building birdhouses at Mary Margaret’s very weird suggestion and mostly they bond through him being judgmental when Emma paints hers to look like the batmobile.

“You’re trying to attract _birds_ ,” he says. His own birdhouse is painted green, and he is painstakingly outlining delicate leaves on it in black ink, tongue poking out between his teeth as he concentrates.

“Like robins,” Emma says and then shoots him the finger guns, poking out her tongue and crossing her eyes.

Henry groans at her terrible pun, though Mary Margaret just looks confused. “We don’t get robins in Maine in the fall,” she says, and Henry smiles at Emma properly for the first time, a smile that speaks of a shared private joke, hopefully the first of many.

After a meal of reheated lasagna for which Emma would literally sell her soul to the devil to get a second helping, Henry goes to bed early. “School tomorrow,” Mary Margaret reminds him. “Normally you’ll take him to school,” she adds when Henry trudges upstairs, grumbling all the whole, “but since I’m going that way I’ll cover drop offs until Regina’s back.”

After Emma checks Henry’s light is out, she returns downstairs to find Mary Margaret has made them both cocoa. They sit together in the lounge, Emma terrified she’s going to spill her drink all over the cream sofa. Mary Margaret doesn’t seem nearly as concerned, however, curling up under a mohair blanket, drink held at a precarious angle. Knowing that Mary Margaret is Regina’s step-daughter but knowing so little else about her employer, Emma is curious. “Henry must have been a late-in-life baby,” she says, blowing cool air over the surface of her too-hot drink. “I mean, you’re about my age, right?”

Mary Margaret shakes her head though. “Regina’s only a little older than me,” she says. “She married Daddy when she was nineteen. I was thirteen, I think. I got to be a bridesmaid. Pink chiffon and a crown of flowers. I was _very_ excited.”

“That’s a pretty big age gap,” Emma says, trying to remain neutral, to keep the judgement and disgust out of her voice.

“Love knows no boundaries,” Mary Margaret says, her voice taking on a storytelling quality. “Regina rescued me when I was having a riding lesson and my horse got spooked and ran off. She was so brave; she rode after me and pulled me from the horse before I could fall. Daddy fell in love with her the moment he clapped eyes on her. She was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen in my life.”

The taste of the cocoa makes Emma want to be sick. She wishes she had never asked about this, wishes she’d left well enough alone. The lack of wedding photos around the house suddenly makes a sickening amount of sense.

“When Daddy died, Regina was a rock,” Mary Margaret continues. “Arranged everything for the funeral, dealt with the lawyers and family and media _—_ Daddy was a Storybrooke institution and _very_ wealthy _—_ and made sure I had what I needed to finish my education. She’s hardened over the years and we don’t get on so well now, but it angers me so much, some of the nasty rumours…” She stops, takes a sip of cocoa. “I shouldn’t be talking about that though.” She smiles brightly, falsely. “What made you want to come to Storybrooke?”

Emma is grateful for the change of subject, even though it is the closest she has come to finding out why everyone seems so scared of Regina Mills. Mary Margaret’s account of her father and stepmother's relationship is disturbing, to say the least, so selfishly recounted. Emma feels guilty for the thought, given Mary Margaret's welcoming of her, but she can’t help but think, _no wonder Regina Mills went hard in the face of such naivety and self-involvement._ “I’ve just never been one for staying in the one place,” she says, a half-truth at best.

“I’m such a homebody,” Mary Margaret says, and finishes her cocoa. “You know, I’ve never even felt _curious_ about the world outside of Storybrooke.”

This doesn’t surprise Emma in the slightest. They sit silently for a while, Emma watching the shadows playing outside. Then, she feigns a yawn. “Oh, I’ve kept you up!” Mary Margaret says, taking Emma’s mug from her and bustling towards the kitchen.

Over the coming days a routine develops, the days blurring into each other. Emma keeps the house in order during the day, before picking Henry up after school and walking home with him. He doesn’t seem to have friends, always sitting alone and reading when she arrives at the school gates, and she is concerned as well with his sleep. He seems tired all the time, bruise-like circles beneath his eyes, despite apparently going to bed early even for a ten-year-old.

“I’m fine,” he says though, every time she brings up her concerns. His tone brooks no rebuttal.

Every evening, Regina Mills contacts Mary Margaret, reminding her of Henry’s dentist appointment or that the chicken in the refrigerator expires the next day or asking her to check that Emma is helping Henry with his math homework _—_ practical concerns only.

She never asks to speak with Emma. Henry appears not to be interested in speaking to his mother; when Mary Margaret holds the phone out to him on Monday evening, he takes it, mumbles a few brief words down the line, and hangs up without saying goodbye. Emma watches him curiously but he avoids her gaze.

Regina Mills doesn’t ask to speak to her son again.

“She says she’ll be back on Monday,” Mary Margaret says on Friday night after the phone call, but Henry just shrugs at the news, returning to his book.

“What’s the deal with Henry and his mom?” Emma asks later, but at this Mary Margaret clams up.

“It’s not my place to say,” she says, which is a little ridiculous given what she’s told Emma of the past days.

It’s drizzling on Saturday morning when Emma wakes early, intending to go for a run. For a moment, she contemplates crawling back into the comfortable bed, returning to sleep until the rest of the household is awake, but she’s been lazy this week and that, coupled with the heavy food Mary Margaret has been cooking, is making her feel lethargic. She drags her hair back into a ponytail, puts on leggings and a tank top and sneaks downstairs.

The bonus of running this early is that no one will be out, except possibly Archie with Pongo, his dalmatian. Folks in Storybrooke are friendly, too friendly really, and far too keen to get to know the newest addition to the town. She has been at Granny’s a couple of times with Henry and had felt like she was on display in a museum.

The mist is dense. She has barely stepped off the footpath to cross the street in order to run towards the water, when a Mercedes emerges from the fog, barreling towards her. She freezes in the orange headlights—this is how she’s going to die, run over by a rich idiot, how humiliating—but the car screeches to a halt, skidding slightly on damp tarmac, and stopping barely an inch from her. The horn blares, loud and incessant.

Her legs tremble. Her heart seems to beat and flutter out from her rib cage. Spots dance in front of her eyes, vision blurring. Then, her anger rises. “ _Idiot!”_ she yells, hitting the bonnet of the car with her fist.

The driver’s side door opens and someone emerges. “What the hell were you thinking?” the woman yells, stalking forward. The heel of her left shoe has snapped, and she stumbles, swearing under her breath.

Emma looks at her, taking in the sharp bob of dark hair, the rumpled pencil skirt and blazer, the wardrobe that speaks power and privilege, and feels rage rise in her throat. “What the hell was _I_ thinking?” she asks, incredulous. “ _I’m_ not the one driving the gas guzzling monstrosity into joggers!”

“My car is fuel efficient!” the woman snaps. She’s little, Emma thinks, despite the high heeled pumps she’s wearing; Emma is eye to eye with her in sneakers. What she lacks in height though, she’s making up in spades with pure, intimidating fury. The bristling rage is somehow ridiculously attractive, the woman’s dark eyes flashing, her lips, painted a flattering dark red shade, curled into a snarl, an angry flush forming on her light brown skin.

Emma is startled out of her anger for moment. “That’s what you took from that?” she asks. “Christ, you’ve got a problem, lady.”

“Stay the hell out of my way,” the woman hisses, storming back to her car, or as much as one can storm in a broken heel.

Emma runs, letting the pounding of her feet against the pavement drown out everything else. She pushes herself harder than she normally would, having to stop at the boardwalk by the water to clutch her side and gulp in deep breaths of sea air. However, the exertion means that by the time she’s returned to Mifflin Street she has calmed down enough to be civil to Henry and Mary Margaret.

But something is tangibly different when she opens the front door. The house seems to shift and whisper anxiously, and she shivers despite the warmth of the foyer. Before she can move any further, Henry comes running into the hall. “ _She’s_ home,” he whispers. Then he adds, wrinkling his nose, “you smell gross.”

Dread pools in Emma’s stomach. “Henry,” comes a familiar voice from the vicinity of the kitchen, “no running in the house.”

“Come on,” Henry says, and he grips her hand in his. It’s such a trusting gesture, Emma forgets her terror, her embarrassment, everything, for the moment.

“Mom,” Henry says. “This is Emma.”

The woman at the stove top turns and Emma’s darkest suspicions are confirmed. She grimaces. _Of course_ . Of- _fucking_ -course the first time she had met her employer was when she was almost run over by her car. “Ms Swan,” Regina Mills says, her voice clipped and eyes cold. “We meet again.” She smiles, though it does not reach her eyes and does nothing to make her appear friendly.

Henry is looking curiously between the two of them, so Emma sticks out her hand. “Regina, hi,” she says. “So nice to finally meet you properly.”

Regina eyes her hand for one long, disdainful moment, scans Emma from her mud-flecked sneakers up to her tank top which is damp with sweat, and then very deliberately ignores it. “It’s Ms Mills,” she says. “I’m making Henry oatmeal. There’s enough for you should you want some.” Given her general demeanor, Emma wouldn’t be surprised if she spiked the oatmeal with cyanide.

Still, she nods. “Sounds great, _Regina_ ,” she says, because she’s a total idiot when it comes to authority figures. The tension in the kitchen is unbearable. “Look, I’m sorry about before…”

“What happened?” Henry asks. “Why are you being all weird?”

Regina looks over at him, and her whole being shifts, face softening into a tentative smile, eyes vulnerable. “Nothing, darling,” she says. Her hand twitches, as if she wants to reach out and touch him—to run her fingers through his hair, or squeeze his shoulder—but she desists. “Ms Swan and I had a little run-in earlier.”

“In that your mom tried to run me over,” Emma says, and Regina glares at her.

“Ms Swan tried to kill herself is closer to the mark,” she replies. Then she turns back to the stove, stirring the oatmeal so venomously it splashes over the side of the pot. She has removed the blazer, and her shoulders beneath the thin burgundy blouse are tensed. At least the wardrobe fits with Emma’s expectations, she thinks, because almost every other theory she held about Regina Mills has been proven inaccurate.

“Is Mary Margaret around?” Emma asks, desperate to change the subject because Henry is starting to look like someone’s shot a puppy in front of him.

“She’s packing to leave,” Regina says, her tone of voice suggesting Emma would be more than welcome to do the same.

“Right,” Emma says, shuffling awkwardly. “Well, I’ll just go and say thank you, I guess.”

Regina doesn’t acknowledge this. However, when she reaches the hall, she overhears Henry say, “if you send Emma away I’ll hate you forever.”

“Henry,” Regina says, and her voice is laced with exhaustion. “I—“

Emma practically runs upstairs at this.

Mary Margaret is folding her clothes into her suitcase. “You don’t even get to stay for breakfast?” Emma says, and Mary Margaret smiles.

“It's always best to get out of her way as soon as possible," she says. "I told you Regina isn't fond of me.”

“Is she fond of anyone?” Emma asks, handing Mary Margaret her makeup bag.

“Good question.” She sighs, bunches up a few pairs of underwear into the corner of her suitcase. “I’m looking forward to being back at my apartment, and seeing my boyfriend again.”

She shoves  the lid of the suitcase down and zips it up. “Good luck, Emma,” she says, and leans forward, hugging her right. It's a strange feeling, though not unwelcome. For all her faults, Mary Margaret has been kind to Emma, and she realises she'll miss her. She softens into the hug, letting the floral scent of Mary Margaret’s perfume envelop her. “Be good to Henry,” Mary Margaret adds in a whisper. “He needs someone to believe in him.”

And she leaves. Emma can hear her footsteps on the stairs, surprisingly ungainly for so delicate a woman. Rather than return downstairs immediately, she showers and puts on her nicest shirt. She will make a positive _third_ impression; she’s determined on this front.

“Your oatmeal is cold,” Regina says. She is scrubbing at a pot at the sink in a methodical, absent-minded way that suggests she has no idea what she’s doing.

Emma smiles tentatively. “Can we start over? I’m sorry for this morning.”

“Don’t worry, Ms Swan,” Regina says, venom dripping from her voice. “My son may hate me, but he can’t possibly do without you. You’ll stay. Just, keep out of my way as much as possible.”

She places the pot on the drying rack and stalks from the kitchen, stopping in the doorway only to say, “and stay the hell out of my office.”

Fourth impressions, maybe?


	4. In which Henry has a bad dream

_“I was still all in a state of innocence, but that innocence once lost, is lost forever.”_

― _The Woman in Black , Susan Hill_

 

She does as she’s told, and keeps out of Regina’s way as much as possible. In a house this size it should be easy, but Emma’s job is Henry and Regina’s life appears to be Henry―or at least it is this weekend. She manages to avoid her all Saturday, only due to the fact that Regina takes Henry out shopping for most of the afternoon and then to dinner in the evening, but Sunday lunchtime leads to an inevitable crossing of paths once more.

 

Henry, who had just been starting to come out of his shell for Emma, has fully reverted back to form. Emma watches from where she’s folding the freshly laundered new clothes Regina got for Henry on Sunday morning as Regina attempts to coax multi-syllabic responses from Henry, with the suggestion of baking cookies, the possibility of a new comic book, the promise of dinner at Granny’s after his piano lesson on Tuesday…

 

Eventually she gives up, storming past Emma to get to her study, and letting the door slam shut behind her. The house seems to ache along with Regina, wind howling through the cracks in the window frames. A painting falls off the wall in the foyer, glass smashing everywhere, the silence cold and oppressive. “Maybe give her a chance,” Emma suggests, returning from the laundry with the brush and shovel. “I know a week’s a long time to be away…”

 

“You don’t know anything,” Henry snaps, and then pushes his sandwich away uneaten. “I’m going to my room.”

 

Emma ends up vacuuming the downstairs rooms just to make some noise, sure to keep well clear of the study. However, she has to walk past Regina’s study door to reach the living room and she is certain she can hear crying from within―harsh, jagged sobs barely muffled by something, a blanket or cushion maybe. She contemplates knocking but, well, she hasn’t known Regina for long and she already knows enough to realise this will not be appreciated.

 

Lunch was and uncomfortable and Emma is convinced dinner will be a thousand times worse. They eat in the dining room, a space with dimmed lighting and dark wooden furniture and actual, real candlesticks in crystal holders.

 

Regina sits at one end of the table, plating up what looks like lasagne. When Emma takes a bite, she realises it’s made with plantain, not noodles, and lets out a low hum of pleasure, before feeling her face flush pink. Regina glances over at her, and Emma thinks she might almost be amused, though it’s hard to tell with candlelight casting shadows across her face.

 

She eats quickly and it’s only when the plate is almost empty that she realises Henry is staring at her. “How did you not choke?” he asks, something like awe in his voice.

 

“Henry Daniel Mills!” Regina exclaims, but Emma laughs.

 

“Practise,” she jokes because there are some things a well-cared-for little boy being carefully watched over by his protective mother does not need to hear about living in group homes and not knowing where your next meal will come from. “Keep it up and you’ll be chowing down fifteen hot dogs in a go.”

 

Henry looks down at his plate speculatively. “If you throw up, I’ll rub your nose in it like a puppy being taught to toilet train,” Regina says. She looks quite forbidding but Henry giggles, the sound light and clear and the look on Regina’s face―Emma wonders for a moment if everything will be alright after all.

 

She couldn't be more wrong though.

 

She dreams that night of a woman, dressed in black, skin pale as chalk, lips dripping blood. “I know who you really are,” she whispers. “Wake up.” There’s a child crying somewhere, screaming, but Emma’s trapped, limbs frozen.

 

“ _Wake up,”_ the woman hisses.

 

She wakes, her feet tangled in her sheets, and she hears a sharp scream. _Henry!_ She doesn’t think, leaping up and running to his bedroom door, left cracked open because Henry isn’t fond of the dark. Normally the hallway light is left on for him, but the bulb must have blown.

 

Regina is already in there with him, and Emma watches through the crack in the door, as she sits down beside him, hand stroking his hair, which is damp with sweat, back from his forehead. “Oh my darling,” she murmurs. “My little prince. It was just a nightmare.”

 

“I don’t want you!” Henry says, voice high and hysterical and terrified, jerking away and pulling his quilt up around him, and Regina stiffens as though she has been slapped.

 

“Henry—” she starts but Henry rolls over, burrowing his face in his pillow.

 

Emma steps back from the door just in time for Regina to emerge. She presses the palm of her hand flat against the plaque on the door, index finger tracing the ‘H’ of Henry’s name. Her shoulders slump, and then she looks up and sees Emma standing there.

 

When Emma was a little kid, she watched, hidden horrified, while some boys at a group home she was in between foster families cornered a stray cat, taunted it and poked at it and pulled fur from its tail. The wild, dangerous look on its face mirrors Regina's own expression in this moment.

 

“He okay?” Emma asks softly.

 

“I don't know what you _think_ you heard,” Regina starts, voice vibrating barely contained menace. However, to Emma it feels like a facsimile of danger; she seems too sad and exhausted to muster up any real menace.

 

“I just got here. Heard a scream,” Emma lies. “Nightmares are rough.”

 

Regina eyes her for a long moment, and it is then that Emma realises she is not actually wearing much in the way of anything, having gone to sleep in underwear and a tank top. Her professionalism really knows no bounds. Before she can apologise, Regina removes her robe, baring silky pyjamas, and hands it over to Emma. “If you're going to talk to my son, at least cover yourself decently.”

 

“Are you sure?” Emma asks, though she has already taken the robe, the soft fabric brushing against her skin like a caress as she shrugs it on.

 

“Of course I’m not,” she replies irritably. “But he won't be comforted by me and I won't—I can't—” She stops, presses her lips together in a tight, thin line, clenches her jaw. “Just do your job, Ms Swan.”

 

Emma watches her leave, the sheen of silver silk remaining even as she disappears into blackness. Footsteps pad down the stairs, disappearing into silence. Emma takes a deep breath, knocks at Henry’s door, and pokes her head in. “Can I come in, kid?”

 

Henry lifts his head up from the pillow, face streaked with tears and eyes bloodshot. “I guess,” he mumbles.

 

She takes a seat at the end of the bed, places a hand hesitantly on the lump of his foot beneath the quilt. “You could get a job in a haunted house,” she says. “Got quite a scream for such a short-ass.”

 

“I’m not short,” Henry says, with an outrage reserved only for those who are all too aware they're shorter than average.

 

She squeezes his foot beneath the quilt. “Bad dreams suck,” she says. “Sometimes it helps to talk about them though.”

 

“It wasn't just a nightmare,” he says and blows his nose loudly.

 

“Then…” she prompts.

 

Henry stares at her for a long moment. Outside, the wind rattles and clatters at his windows, and his curtains seem to shift with the gusts of air seeping through cracks in the windowpanes. “It was the ghost.”

 

“Oh, _kid_ ,” Emma says, sighing. This is above her pay grade. And this is so above her ability levels. In the twenty-four hours she has known Regina Mills, Mayor of Storybrooke, she knows that she would be better at dealing with this.

 

But Henry doesn’t want Regina. For whatever reason he wants her.  

 

“You don't believe me,” he says. The worst thing is, he doesn’t look upset. Just resigned, and that is what breaks Emma’s heart.

 

“It’s not that,” she says. She feels helpless, drowning in this situation. Do you feed a delusion or starve it? She remembers Mary Margaret saying, _he needs someone to believe in him,_ and squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, trying to think, and failing. “It’s a lot to take in…”

 

“You need proof?” he asks, and rolls his eyes. “God. You're such a _grown up._ ”

 

“Only barely,” she protests and is rewarded with the briefest smile flashing across his lips, before he turns serious once more.

 

“She’s a woman,” he says. “Kind of old. Wears black. She has eyes like a skull and lips as red as blood. I saw her for the first time when I turned ten.”

 

After the fourth nanny, Emma thinks. She remembers being returned to the group home after her third failed foster home, remembers her imaginary friend whose fault everything had been. _Lily broke the glass. Lily bit the dog. Lily locked herself in the bathroom because she doesn’t like the mean boy._ It had been easier to blame someone else when she felt like yet another family didn’t want her. “What does she—”

 

But Henry interrupts her. “She tells me things. Horrible things.” He’s sitting up now, shifting the pillow to rest against his back and pulling to quilt up to his chin.

 

“Like what?” Emma asks.

 

“The truth,” Henry says.

 

Emma shivers. He’s so serious, dark eyes intent upon her, and she’s known him for all of a week, but she feels like she really _knows_ him, like he’s connected to her somehow, more than just as her charge. There’s something unsettlingly familiar in his eyes, that same lost feeling. “The truth isn't evil,” she says, and pulls the robe tighter around herself.

 

“ _This_ truth is,” he says. “The ghost told me that Regina Mills is a _murderer_.”

 

He is so certain, so sure, she finds herself nodding for a second, before she realises what she has just agreed to. “Wait, what?”

 

“She killed her true love,” Henry says. “And her husband, Mary Margaret’s dad. And her mother.” The words come bursting out of him, a torrent of horror, and he takes a deep, gulping breath when he’s done.

 

“Henry,” Emma says, trying to be gentle. “These sorts of things don’t go unsolved in real-life. If she was a murderer she would have been caught.” She is aware she’s feigning a confidence in the justice system that she doesn't feel.

 

Henry scoffs at this. “Do you know how many unsolved murders there are in the world? We still don't know who Jack the Ripper was.”

 

“ _Jesus_ .” Emma sighs. “Your mom is _not_ Jack the Ripper.”

 

Henry mumbles something, covering his mouth with his quilt. When Emma asks him to repeat himself, the words burst out, wild and desperate. “She's not even my real Mom!”

 

Silence. Only the howling of the wind breaks the stillness of the room.

 

“She seems pretty real to me,” Emma says gently.

 

“The ghost showed me where the adoption papers were,” he says. “She lied to me. She _always_ lies.”

 

This, Emma thinks, is the heart of the matter. Not the ghost or the murders, but a little boy who sees the world in black and white, who is told ‘adoption’ and hears ‘abandoned’, who can’t put his anger where it belongs and so lashes out at the nearest available target. She remembers the desperate hurt in Regina’s voice, the muffled sobs, the anger at Emma for filling a space reserved for a mother.  “My parents left me on the side of the road when I was a baby,” she says after a moment, and Henry looks up from the stray thread he has been unwinding from his quilt. “Somewhere near here. I was adopted by a family, but then they had a kid of their own and I got sent back, was labelled ‘troubled’. Never really found a family that stuck after that.”

 

Henry’s thin shoulders are tensed, his hands wrapped around knees drawn up to his chest. “Don’t tell me I’m lucky,” he says. He doesn’t look much like Regina—for reasons which are now obvious—and she’d assumed he’d taken after Mary Margaret’s white father. She sees Regina now in his mannerisms, in the thin line of his lips and the tense twisting of his fingers.

 

“I’m not,” Emma says. “Just—you have a mom, kid. I would have killed for that.”

 

“She doesn’t love me,” he says, his voice ragged and quiet. “The ghost says she’s not capable of loving anyone. She just pretends to.”

 

“Did you ever doubt that she loved you before the ghost?” Emma asks.

 

Henry doesn’t answer.

 

Emma wants to tell him about the little boy she’d given birth to, about giving a child up for his best chance, and how she hoped desperately that child would end up with a mother like Regina Mills—even with the threats to destroy the newly hired nanny and evil ghosts who spread rumours about her being a murderer. Instead, she just stands and says, “Think you can sleep now? You’ve got school tomorrow.”

 

Henry burrows down under his blankets, eyes drooping shut. “Thanks for pretending to believe me,” he says, words slurred.

 

“No pretending about it,” Emma says, watching him from the doorway. What the hell has she got herself into?  

 

Once in the hall, she realises she can hear voices downstairs, and she pads to the staircase, looking down at the dimly lit foyer. “—neighbours called me,” the figure says. Emma looks more closely at the glint on her belt and realises it’s a sheriff’s badge, that the woman standing close to Regina is the sheriff of Storybrooke. “Said there were screams and they were concerned. Are you okay?”

 

“We’re fine,” Regina says stiffly. Her arms are wrapped protectively around herself and she sniffs. The sound echoes in the the dim silence. “You can go about your business, sheriff.”

 

The sheriff wraps an arm around Regina’s shoulder, fingers squeezing her arm, and presses a kiss to her cheek, and it looks so gentle, so loving. “You know it’s a phase. It’ll pass. Do you need company tonight?”

 

Emma retreats at this, not wanting to hear Regina’s answer and feeling like she’s intruded on something horrifyingly intimate. She’s not sure why she feels so depressed by this new information, a sickening twist in her gut and heaviness in her chest. So what if Regina Mills has a lover?

 

She shuts the door to her room carefully and crawls into bed, realising too late that she is still wearing the robe. She doesn’t remove it though; the feel of the wool against her skin is comforting and she needs comfort right now.

  
It is as she succumbs to sleep that one final, disturbing thought hits her: the woman from her dream sounds a lot like Henry’s ghost.  


	5. In which our heroine socialises with the locals

_“She burned too bright for this world.”_

_— Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte _

“Henry!” Emma calls, banging on his door a third time. “Time to get up.”

She hears a loud grunting sound through the door, and assumes this means Henry is back in the land of the living. She’d rather be asleep herself, would definitely rather be padding around the house in pyjamas, or ideally, her underwear, and drinking coffee. Her last job had much less horrifying wake-up times.

Downstairs, Regina is making coffee like nothing happened last night, already fully  dressed and made up for work. “You okay?” Emma asks, after an awkward beat where she contemplates not acknowledging the night before at all.

Regina turns to her for a moment, her face a mask of indifference. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she asks.

“Last night was rough,” Emma says, shrugging. “You don’t have to pretend—”

“Last night was typical of my son,” Regina says, and she purses her lips. “I suggest you get used to it. Coffee?”

“Yeah,” Emma says, discomfited by the shift to a brighter tone at the final word. The only hint something might be wrong with Regina is her wincing when Henry’s footsteps sound on the stairs. Emma cradles her coffee in her hands gratefully, and looks out the window to the barren garden, the gnarled, naked branches of the trees menacing.

Henry shuffles into the kitchen, eyes half-shut. “Morning, Emma,” he grumbles and then, after a pause, he adds, “Morning, Mom.” His voice echoes, furtive and almost guilty, but it’s a start and Emma’s heart lightens.

Regina smiles at him, though there is something guarded in the curve of her lips. “Good morning, sweetheart. Cereal?”

Henry nods, still quiet, but less abrasive than he has been. He takes the box of puffed wheat from his mother and Emma passes him the milk. She’s so tired that she kind of wants to plant her face in her coffee and drown in it. Regina looks at her cell phone. “I have to be going,” she says, and straightens the collar of Henry’s shirt in an almost absent-minded gesture. “Have a good day at school.”

Henry squirms at her attempts at fixing his uniform, but before she shifts away from him, he wraps an arm around her waist and mumbles something that sounds like, “I love you,” into her blazer.

Regina sniffs, eyes falling shut for a moment. “I love you so much,” she murmurs, voice choked, and kisses the top of his head, before leaving swiftly, her parting words to Emma, “Make sure he gets to school on time.”

Emma rolls her eyes at Regina’s departing form and Henry giggles. He seems tired, but somehow more at peace. “You sleep well the rest of the night?” she asks, pushing him lightly with her shoulder.

He shrugs. “Not really. _She_ didn’t come back though. Sometimes she does.”

She gets him out the door in time for school, only having to run back into the house once in order to collect the grocery list Regina wrote her. Henry is silent on the drive but as he gets out of the car he says, “Thanks,” and Emma’s pretty sure it’s not just for the ride.

She decides that her exhausted and successful self deserves coffee and a bear claw, and swings past Granny’s on the way to the grocery store. While Ruby is brewing a fresh pot, someone sits down beside her at the counter. “You must be Emma,” she says. She’s thin, dark skin glowing and hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Coiled around her neck is a silk scarf, orange, and she wears her jacket and jeans combination with the sort of casual elegance Emma has always fallen short of.

“And you must be—” Emma says, raising her eyebrows.

“Tamara,” the woman says, and holds out a hand. “I’m the sheriff.”

It had been dark in the hall, and Emma hadn’t been able to see the sheriff. Her experiences with sheriffs to date have been with old white men dressed in taupe, looking for a leg-up in local government, not stylish, young women with real gold jewelry. Tamara smiles at her and Emma takes her hand, cold, skin dry. “How’s Henry doing today?”

“You should probably ask Mayor Mills that,” Emma says. Ruby slides the coffee across the counter to her, gaze curious.

Tamara actually laughs at that. “I like that you think Mayor Mills would tell me anything.”

“You two seemed pretty cozy last night,” Emma says and then wants to shoot herself.

Tamara raises an eyebrow, and of course she can raise one eyebrow because she’s sophisticated and Emma is an idiot. “Jealous?” she asks.

Emma’s face heats up, and she gestures to Ruby. “I’ll take the pastry to go,” she says, scrambling around in her wallet for loose change. She leaves to the sound of Tamara’s laughter.

She spends the day on her return from the most complicated grocery shop of all time sorting laundry and stewing about Regina Mills and the sheriff, and when she picks Henry up from school, she asks, “What do you think of the sheriff?”

“Tamara?” he asks, scrunching his nose in a manner that so exactly mimics his mother Emma wants to laugh. “She’s okay, I guess.” Then, he slides her hand into hers. “Can we get milkshakes?”

It’s probably proof that she’s a terrible nanny, but she can’t resist those brown eyes looking beseechingly up at her, his lower lip trembling slightly.

It’s an easy week all told. Henry continues to make small overtures towards Regina, to endeavour to accept her gestures of love and affection, to be more forgiving. However, when he wakes up screaming on Wednesday night, he asks for Emma. She tries not to notice the burning fury in Regina’s eyes as she brushes past her to reach Henry. “The ghost showed me the body,” he says, picking at his cuticles with dangerous intensity. His little face is haggard with lack of sleep, skin too pale and the bags under his eyes so pronounced they look like bruises. “Leopold Blanchard sprawled at the bottom of the staircase. _She_ was standing at the top, looking down. She looked like she didn’t even care.”

“It was a dream, Henry,” Emma says, fixing his twisted sheets. He lays his head back down on the pillow, and lets Emma tuck him in.

“They talk about her around town,” he says sleepily. “People think I don’t hear it, but I do.”

“Talk to her.”

He shakes his head. “She lies.”

“Everybody lies, Henry.”

“You don’t,” he says, and, even after everything, he’s so trusting.

He’s better in waking hours, usually.

Finally, Friday rolls around and Emma has her first official evening off. In an effort to leave the oppressive mansion, she finds herself at a bar called The Rabbit Hole, nursing a beer at the bar and trying to ignore some weedy, leather-clad asshole who’s trying to flirt with her.

“Emma Swan,” Gwen says, sliding onto the stool beside her, the touch to her shoulder making Emma jump. “We meet again.”

“Everyone in this town is so dramatic,” Emma says irritably, and Gwen laughs.

“Come and join me and my friends,” she says, grabbing Emma’s arm and dragging her over to a table, giving her barely enough time to grab her beer. “This is Emma!” Gwen says, sitting her down in front of two people nursing gin and tonics at a small table. “She’s—”

“Our new neighbour,” the person closest to Emma says. She’s Chinese, long, dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she is giving off the biggest queer vibe, though probably, Emma admits to herself, she shouldn’t go crowning herself a genius gay detective yet given she’s holding hands with the woman beside him, thumb stroking the smooth skin of the back of her hand.

“Marian and Mulan live next door to the mayor,” Gwen says.

“The cute little place?” Emma asks. “With 100 percent fewer creepy sculpted bushes?”

Marian laughs at this, and nods. “How is Henry?”

“He’s fine?” she says, asks really. Henry’s never mentioned the neighbours and, perhaps Emma’s paranoid, but she’s never sure whether she should discuss him in a town like this.

“We hear him sometimes,” Mulan explains. “Late at night. Sound carries.”

“Oh.” Emma thinks back. “You called the sheriff on Sunday?”

“Guys,” Gwen says, pouting. “This is _not_ chill talk.”

They drink and laugh and Emma thinks she might have found people who could resemble friends. She’s always been a loner, but there’s something about Storybrooke, something that weaves you into its tapestry and makes you part of it.

Gwen disappears on receiving a mysterious text message (“booty call,” Marian says, all too knowingly. “She’s got an on-again, off-again thing with someone and she’s so self-important about not telling anyone who it is.”) and Marian, who’s the sober driver of the pair, gives Emma a lift. Emma sits with her forehead pressed to the window, street lights blurring by, and lets the noise and chat wash over her. Mulan is a bit of a mess in the front seat, alternating singing along to the radio with telling Emma how much she loves Marian.

“Regina and I were best friends at high school,” Marian says during a brief moment of silence from Mulan. “She was _intense_. Probably my favourite person of all time though.” She pulls into their driveway, the light on their porch warming and orange.

“You should come by and see her sometime,” Emma says.

“I’m not sure she’d like that,” Marian says. “We kind of—lost touch. After her wedding.”

Emma frowns, an image of Regina dressed in white looking impossibly young and desperately alone flashing into her brain. What must it have been like to marry that young, and to someone so old? What must it have been like to feel so powerless? “I think she needs people,” she says. The car pulls to a stop. “Nice to meet you. And you, Mulan.” Mulan grins at her, goofy.

“Two drinks,” Marian mouths, rolling her eyes. Then, Emma watches as she reaches over, brushes a hand against Mulan’s cheek. Mulan grabs the hand and kisses it. It’s kind of unbearably cute. Why are all the women in Storybrooke kind of unbearably cute, even the mean, grouchy ones?

(Especially the mean, grouchy ones.)

Walking up the path to the mansion, she notes the light is not on for her. Of course not. Regina wouldn’t care if she drunkenly stumbled and broke her ankle. Regina wouldn’t care if she couldn’t find the door.

She fumbles with her key, and unlocks the door. It’s dark inside, moonlight filtering through the high windows of the foyer and painting the floorboards silver.

But the light in Regina’s study is still on at, yes, one in the morning. Emma stops, considers, and she’s just drunk enough to think this is a good idea. She knocks.

No answer.

She knocks again. And listens at the door. The sounds coming from the study are strange, crackling. The light glowing beneath it isn’t electric.

She opens the door, just a crack, and then stumbles in, suddenly very sober, finding Regina, asleep at her desk, and a ring of fire surrounding her, flames licking angry and orange. “Regina!” she yells, and grabs the blanket from the leather couch, throwing it over the flames, attempting to suffocate them.

Regina jerks awake. “What—”

But Emma has run to the laundry, filling up a bucket with water and running back. She pours it slowly over the remains of the fire on the desk, while Regina stands there in shock.

With the fire out, the only light in the study is a lamp, the room dark and warm. “You okay?” Emma asks.

Regina coughs. “I’m—fine,” she says.

“I’ll call the fire department,” Emma says.

“No!” Regina grabs her arm. “That’s not necessary.”

“Your desk was _literally_ on fire,” Emma says. “Also, you should probably get checked out for smoke inhalation.”

Regina shivers. “I really loved that rug,” she says, picking up the now charred blanket.

Emma shrugs off her jacket and hands it over. “Put it on,” she says and, when Regina looks at it dubiously, snaps, “it’s just pleather. It won’t kill you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Regina mutters, but she pulls on the jacket and sits down on the couch, kicking off her shoes and curling her feet up beneath her. Her feet are encased in pantyhose, a little line across her toes.

“Do you know how this started?”

“I must have left a candle burning on my desk and drifted off,” she says, and then pats the space beside her. “Sit down, please.”

Emma sits, not sure what to do with her hands. Now the adrenaline has worn off, she can feel the effects of the beer kicking back in. “At least let me call the sheriff,” she says.

“Why would you call Tamara?” Regina asks.

“I don’t know,” Emma says. “You might need some comfort?”

Regina laughs, short and sharp and unamused. “No,” she says. “This is—enough.” She wraps her arms around herself. Emma watches her, face shadowed. The silhouette of her profile fascinates her, the sharp line of her jaw, the pout of her lips, the Grecian nose… Regina runs a hand through her short crop of hair and hums, low and smooth.

“Is there anything I can do?” Emma asks.

“Just, stay with me,” Regina says, and she leans towards her, does the unthinkable, resting her head against Emma’s shoulder. Emma’s hand twitches and then she wraps her arm around Regina.

Regina’s hair is in her face. It tickles and she smells of smoke and, faintly, of the floral scent Emma smelled on the bathrobe she borrowed (and, incidentally, never returned). “I hate fire,” Emma says.

Regina snorts, hair brushing Emma’s jaw. “I don’t think many people are fond of it.”

“One of my foster brothers lit my baby blanket on fire when I was a kid,” Emma says. “I was still wrapped in it.” Her free hand rubs convulsively at her thigh where, beneath the jeans, there is a shiny burn scar.

Regina stiffens. “I’m—”

Perhaps it’s the residual effects of the beer making her brave, or perhaps Regina is so soft and apologetic and vulnerable in this moment, but Emma can’t help herself. “I just want to say, Henry might be going through stuff now, but I’m glad he has you as a mom.”

And Regina looks up at her, eyes shining, lips parted. Emma’s heart pounds. “Thank you,” she murmurs, and she leans forward and kisses her, softly, at the side of her mouth.

And Emma’s world turns upside down. She shifts, pulling Regina towards her, kisses back, wraps her free hand through Regina’s hair, soft beneath her fingers. Regina tastes of smoke, and cider, and her eyes shut, eyelashes fluttering against the smooth beige of her skin.

“Woah,” Emma says, when they part, her chest rising and falling rapidly, a smile starting to form on her lips.

Regina pulls away from her. “My apologies, Ms Swan,” she says. She stands, unsteady, and walks to the door. “That was completely inappropriate.”

Emma sighs, and checks the desk for any remnants of fire. Then, she folds the charred blanket carefully, places Regina’s shoes at the front door, and goes upstairs.

She dreams of flames, whipping around her face, of a man having his heart ripped out and crushed between knotted fingers, of a woman screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if this isn't up to the same standard. Meeting a deadline is the one thing I can control right now.


	6. In which our heroine finds out more about her employer's troubled past

_“My father lost me to the Beast at cards”_

_― ‘The Tiger’s Bride’, Angela Carter_

The next morning is… interesting.

Regina refuses to look at her when she arrives at breakfast, which would be funnier if Emma wasn’t so aware that Henry has to know something’s up; he keeps looking between the two of them curiously. “There were weird noises last night,” he says. “I heard a yell.”

Emma snorts at this and Regina glares at her. “There was a little incident last night,” Regina says carefully. “A small fire.”

Henry’s eyes turn wide and terrified. “The ghost,” he murmurs to Emma.

“I beg your pardon?” Regina asks. Her voice is sharp, and Emma wonders how much she knows, despite Henry’s anathema to telling his mother the truth.

“Nothing,” he mumbles. “Are you working this weekend?”

Regina continues to look at him suspiciously for a moment, but then says, “I need to today, sweetheart. I’m still catching up after the week in Portland.”

Henry sighs at this. “You’re _always_ working.”

“Your mom’s the mayor, kid,” Emma says. “Give her a bit of a break.”

Henry scowls into his cereal and breakfast continues in uncomfortable silence. When he goes upstairs to shower, Regina rounds on Emma. “I’ll thank you not to insert yourself in conversations with my son.”

“Then defend yourself,” Emma says. A mean, snarly sort of mood is starting to take over her mind, and Regina seems just as ready to pick a fight. “Henry needs to be told when he’s asking too much of you.”

“There’s no such thing,” Regina snaps. “If you were a mother you’d know that.”

Her words, however unintentional, cut Emma. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll get out of your way then.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted from you,” Regina snarls.

She can’t resist this. “Are you sure? Seems you wanted something else last night.” She waggles her eyebrows, and is gratified to see the flush spread slowly up Regina’s neck to her cheeks.

“You are an imbecile,” she says, and then sweeps out of the kitchen.

“What did Mom want last night?” Henry asks from the doorway, surprising Emma.

“Nothing,” she says.

She knows she has responded too quickly, because Henry gives her a sceptical look and then says, “okaaaaay,” in the most ludicrously slow drawl.

“Aren’t you showering?” Emma asks.

“Forgot my watch,” Henry says, grabbing the watch sitting at his place at the table.

For Fall, it’s a fine day, and after Regina has left for work, she sits outside in the yard with Henry, curled up on the swing seat on the back porch and playing Cheat. Mary Margaret stops by early afternoon. “I saw Regina’s car outside Town Hall,” she says. “I figured it was safe to visit.”

Henry, who sees Mary Margaret daily at school, grows quickly bored of polite conversation, and shifts to sit under the apple tree with one of the Percy Jackson books, back against the tree, a hot cocoa at his side, and a blanket wrapped around his legs to protect from the chill. “He seems better,” Mary Margaret says once she and Emma have settled back down with cocoa of their own. “A little more at peace.”

“Yeah,” Emma says. “He told me, you know, about being adopted.”

“I’m glad he’s talking about it,” Mary Margaret says. “That was a strange time. Daddy had just died—they must have been planning to adopt before his death—and suddenly Regina had this tiny baby. He didn’t stop crying for the first month, furious at the world and everything around him. I used to be the only one who could calm him down,” she adds smugly.

“I bet Regina _hated_ that,” Emma says, and Mary Margaret laughs.

“It’s strange to think he’s my baby brother,” she says. “At any rate, I’m the closest thing to family he’s got, except her.”

“What happened to Regina’s family?”

“Her father died when I was away at college,” Mary Margaret says, frowning. “A heart attack. Henry Mills was the kindest man I knew, after Daddy. And her mother—well, that’s a sad story.”

Emma is well aware she is prying into matters Regina is unlikely to be pleased she knows about, but she can’t help herself. Understanding her means understanding Henry, and being able to help him, and that’s all she can care about. She can’t worry about Regina, especially not when Regina clearly doesn’t want her worrying.

Mary Margaret knits her fingers together, leans back in her chair. “Regina was given this beautiful, ornate mirror as a wedding gift. Huge. Heavy frame. It fell on her mother, knocked her unconscious. By the time someone found her, it was too late. She’d bled out in the guest bedroom.” She winces, one hand coming up to the gold locket hanging around her neck, rubbing the pendant convulsively.

Henry joins them at this point, asking for a snack, and the rest of the day bleeds into evening, an awkward dinner and a swift removal to bed so as to avoid being alone with Regina again.

She imagines it’s just the stories she has been told, but she has nightmares again that night, wakes sweating and shaking, her shirt damp. She shakes with cold and gets out of bed, wrapping her baby blanket around her shoulders, sitting by the window and peering out onto the street.

It’s empty, quiet. The distant woods provide a ominous, jagged silhouette to the sky, and she imagines the topiary bushes in front of the house to be actual swords, ready to destroy intruders. She wonders, not for the first time, about Regina’s design choices. She shivers; an old foster mother told her once that meant someone was walking over her grave, and she wishes she hadn’t remembered this in that moment.

A figure stops outside the house, on what appears to be a lonely walk—strange for the time of night but perhaps she suffers from insomnia just like Emma seems to at the moment—and looks up at the house. She’s too distant, clouded in shadow and fog, but Emma thinks she smiles.

The house creaks and screams in protest against something, and Emma jerks back, looks around her. When she turns back, the woman is gone.

***

She chooses to blame the stupid thing she does on Sunday morning on her exhaustion.

Returning from her run that morning, she bumps into Marian and Mulan, on their way out. Mulan’s carrying empty shopping bags, and Marian waves as she unlocks the car door. “Hey!” she says, holding her side and panting from the run. “How’s the head?”

Mulan grins. “Could ask the same of you.”

“It’s a beautiful day,” Marian says. “Any plans?”

“Regina actually has the whole day off,” Emma says. “Hey, you guys should come by in the afternoon! I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

Marian looks dubious. “Are you—”

“Positive,” Emma says. “She needs friends.”

It’s when she walks into the house, she realises that she’s massively overstepped her bounds—again—and Regina is probably going to murder her.

So, in the spirit of denial, she just doesn’t tell Regina, and then forgets about the conversation, so when there is a knock at the kitchen door in the late afternoon, it takes her just a second too long to realise who it must be. Regina has a smear of cake batter down her nose and Henry has just dropped a cup of flour, coating them all in a thin layer of powder.

Henry jumps down from his stool to answer it. “Hey, Mulan! Marian!” he says.

She hears Marian tell Henry that Emma invited them over, and murmurs, “Oh _shit_.” Regina glares across at her, before plastering a false smile to her face.

“Marian, Mulan, please, come in,” she says, removing her apron. Emma contemplates telling her about the cake batter, but decides she’d rather postpone dying for the moment.

“Is this not a good time?” Marian asks. “Emma said—”

“Ms Swan says a lot of things,” Regina says darkly and Emma gulps. “But please, come in. I’ll make coffee.”

“I could go for a glass of wine if you’ve got any,” Marian offers and Regina smiles at that.

“I still have a bottle of last year’s batch of cider tucked away somewhere if that suits,” she says. “Ms Swan, _dear_ , please show our guests into the living room while Henry and I tidy ourselves up for our guests.”

“I’m going to pay for this later,” Emma mutters to Mulan who snorts loudly.

“Oh mate,” she says. “You’re going to pay for this one now.” She sits down on the sofa, pulling Marian down next to her, and wrapping an arm around her. Emma stands awkwardly in the doorway for a moment, before deciding if she’s going to be murdered, she may as well be comfortable, and settles down on an ottoman.

It is then that Regina enters, apron removed, hair tidied and face wiped. She has a bottle of cider and three glasses in her hands. “Marian, it’s been too long since we did this,” she says in her best politician voice, and pours both her and Mulan a glass of cider.

It takes a couple of glasses of cider to remove some of the Stepford hostess out of Regina’s manner, and by the time Emma, who has not been poured a drink (“you’re on duty,” Regina had said, smiling menacingly), hears the oven timer go off, she’s almost normal—or whatever passes for normal in Regina-land. She is sitting in what Emma has quickly come to realise is _her_ arm chair, Henry seated between her legs, and she runs her fingers through his hair while she talks to Mulan about the local high school’s gym programme. Henry doesn’t flinch away.

“I’ll help,” Marian says, leaping up to follow Emma and, realising she can’t do anything about it, Emma just shrugs.

“So,” Marian says, settling down on one of the bar stools and swilling her drink. “You and Regina are getting on pretty well.”

“I like that you got that from today,” Emma says, pulling the cake out of the oven. The smell of apples and sugar wafts around the kitchen.

“Please,” Marian scoffs. Then, she adds, more seriously, “she’s had enough pain in her life.”

“Mary Margaret’s told me some of it,” Emma says. She pricks a skewer in the cake, like Regina patronisingly told her to do twice, making her repeat back the information to check she understood, and it comes out clean. She’s not really listening to Marian, mostly concerned with getting the cake out of the tin without destroying it.

“Mary Margaret,” Marian says, and Emma doesn’t think she’s imagines the curl of her lip at the name. “I’m sure she painted a rosy picture of the child bride and the old man.” She pauses. “Oh my God, be careful! Regina’s going to kill you if you break the cake.”

“Thanks,” Emma says drily.

“I take it Mary Margaret didn’t tell you about Daniel.”

Emma shakes her head. The cake comes cleanly away from the tin, though one of the apple slices decorating the top falls off in the move. Emma eats the evidence of her failure.

“He was her high school boyfriend,” Marian says. “Cool guy. Cora didn’t approve and, as often happened when Cora disapproved, he met a nasty end.”

“What—”

“Oh, I’m not accusing the old witch of anything,” Marian says. “She just wasn’t particularly cut up when he had an accident at the stables. Regina was destroyed by it, and, of course, Cora engineered it so Leopold Blanchard swooped in to comfort her.”

Emma feels sick. This is what Henry was talking about, his ghost that tells ‘the truth’, who seems to tell the worst versions of every story.  “I didn’t know—”

“I mean, I doubt Regina wants it known that the mayor has a heart,” Marian says. “She basically cut everyone off when she got married. Even me.”

“You didn’t fall out over a boy?” Honestly, it’s what Emma had been imagining after the Friday night conversation with Marian.

Marian laughs. “Closest we got to that was fighting over my stuffed toy fox when we were eight. Regina only wanted it because it was mine, and when she lost she ripped its head off.” She smiles. “Good times.”

“She sounds like a little psychopath,” Emma says, but she smiles as well.

Marian tucks dark curls behind her ear. She looks over at Emma and there is something serious and intent in her dark eyes. “If you’re going to be looking after her, you need to know why she’s such an emotional disaster.”

“I look after _Henry_ ,” Emma says.

Marian just raises an eyebrow, and in that moment Emma sees the striking resemblance between her and her childhood best friend. “Sure, honey,” she says. “And Mulan’s my best gal pal.”

Emma rolls her eyes at this, and they bring the cake back into the living room, where Regina manages to be both patronising and mean about Emma’s ability to get a cake out of a tin without, like, blowing up the kitchen. It takes everything in her power _not_ to remind certain disagreeable mayors that Emma wasn’t the one who set fire to her own desk.

It’s nearing bedtime when Marian and Mulan leave and Henry, exhausted from eating cake and crackers in lieu of dinner, has fallen asleep on the floor with his head against Regina’s knees. Regina moves to wake him up, but Emma stops her, a hand on her arm. “I got this,” she says, and lifts him up.

Regina looks like she might say something, but then just says, “Thanks,” and leads Emma upstairs, pulling down his covers and tucking him in when Emma places him on the bed. She stares down at him. “He looks so peaceful.”

“Hard to imagine he was farting up a storm earlier,” Emma says, and Regina gives her this look of abject disgust at Emma and all her choices.

“What did you and Marian talk about?” she asks, as they leave Henry’s bedroom.

“Not much,” Emma says.

“She told you about Daniel, didn’t she?” Regina sounds more resigned than angry. “I do so love how everyone in this town thinks my past is open game for discussion.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma says. They’re standing outside Regina’s bedroom door, and, _God_ , Emma’s remembering that kiss again, remembering the press of soft lips against hers, remembering the thump of her heart and soft sighs. “I can tell you a secret if you want, make it square.”

“I did a very thorough background check of you,” Regina says. “I know about the petty theft and running away from the foster home when you were sixteen and the time when you were twenty-three and you won second place in a hot dog eating competition. I doubt you can tell me anything I don’t already know.”

“I had a kid,” Emma replies. “He’d be about Henry’s age now. I never even held him.”

Regina is silent for a long moment, the darkness of the hall disguising her expression. “Well, I didn’t know that,” she says eventually. Then, she adds, more softly, “Thank you,” before turning on her heel and going to her room, closing the door gently behind her.

Emma looks in on Henry again, the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling creating strange shadows across his face. “Sleep well, kid,” she whispers.


	7. In which the first of many dark secrets are revealed

 

_ “If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours.” _

_ ― _ _ Carmilla, _ _ J Sheridan Le Fanu _

 

The days pass, and then the weeks. Emma finds a tentative place of peace with Regina, one where she tries not to stare at her too obviously or overstep any more boundaries and where Regina, in turn, is generally civil with Emma. 

Henry thinks they’re both being weirdos, and says as much to Emma many times over the course of the month. 

In fact, beyond a very weird and embarrassing parent-teacher evening Regina forces Emma to attend with her, which almost results in Regina clawing Mary Margaret’s eyes out when she suggests Henry needs to work on his math, things seem almost back to what might be normal. 

Henry and Regina continue with their own uneasy armistice; they’re affectionate with each other but they still haven’t talked and it’s a pressure cooker situation that Emma knows will blow sometime far too soon. Emma nags Henry about it regularly. “At least let me say something to her,” she says one Saturday in mid-October while they’re completing a 1000 piece impossible jig-saw because Henry Mills is the weirdest kid in the universe. She fiddles with one of 1000 similarly shaded blue pieces. Why the hell couldn’t the evil ghost set this puzzle on fire? Perhaps this is Emma’s torment. 

“No,” he says flatly. 

“But—”

“Stop it, Emma,” he says. Regina enters the living room at this point, bending down to kiss Henry’s forehead and then settling into her chair with the papers she’s reading. “And stop hiding puzzle pieces in the couch cushions.”

“This is  _ boring _ ,” she whines. She looks over at Regina, who is pretending to be absorbed in the boring-ass report she’s reading. Her eyes have crinkled up at the corners, however. Emma’s eyes drop to her stockinged feet, curled up on the chair.  

“You’re the worst nanny ever,” Henry says and Regina actually laughs at that. 

It’s a beautiful moment: no ghosts, no lies, no veiled threats.

The doorbell rings. The sound echoes, permeating the quiet of room, a death knell.  “Tell me you haven’t invited surprise guests again,” Regina says, standing and placing her papers on the side table. 

“No,” Emma says, as surprised by the intrusion to their quiet Saturday as anyone. She notes that Regina slides her feet into her heels when she goes to the door, putting on her external face to the world. She’s noticed this a few times now, Regina slipping into her politician’s smile when ordering at Granny’s, or straightening her posture after laughing at something Henry says while they’re in public. 

The bell rings again, insistent. “Well,” Regina says. She seems reluctant to leave the comfort of the living room. “I suppose one can’t very well pretend no one’s home.” 

Emma and Henry sit, silent and listening. The door opens and Emma hears Regina gasp. “Zelena?”

Emma mouths ‘who?’ at Henry, but he looks as confused as she does. The woman—Zelena presumably—launches into speech. “I know what you did,” she says. She has a British accent, the sort of plummy vowels Emma has only ever heard on British period dramas before she has changed the channel in boredom. “You thought you could hide me away in that  _ place _ ? You thought I’d never figure it out?”

“I don’t know—Does the facility know you’re here?”

“I know Mother's dead because of you ,” Zelena says, and Emma’s immediate reaction is to look over at Henry. 

He has gone very pale, whole body tense, lower lip trembling. He stands, and before Emma can stop him, he darts into the hall, Emma following behind him as quickly as she can. 

She is met with the sight of a white woman standing in the doorway, ginger hair wild and eyes rimmed with red. “You’ve taken everything from me,” she hisses. “And now you sit here in this perfect house with your perfect son and this pretty piece of fluff and play  _ happy families _ ? I’m going to tell everyone what you did.”

Emma places a hand on Henry’s shoulder, holding him back. She can feel him tremble. Regina looks like she has been slapped. “Zelena,” she says, as gently as she is able. “You’re not well. Emma, could you please call the number for The Gale Foundation in the front of my appointment book? Take Henry with you to my study.”

Emma shepherds Henry away into the study, where she makes him sit on the couch while she searches through drawers for the appointment book.

“The ghost was telling the truth,” Henry says, his voice dull. His little feet kick against the leather of the couch.

“Oh, kid, no,” Emma says, halting her search momentarily.

“I didn’t even know I had an aunt,” he says. “All Mom does is lie.”

She finds the appointment book and, in it, the number and dials. “The Gale Foundation Rehabilitation Centre, Dot speaking. How may I help?” a cheerful voice sounds down the end of the line.

And,  _ oh _ .

“Yeah,” Emma says. “Regina Mills’ sister has shown up at her house. She seems… disturbed?” She offers more information and is told someone will be at the house in the next hour to pick her up. 

She communicates this to Regina who has managed to keep Zelena contained in the hallway, though a vase seems to have paid the price for this, the shards of ceramic dispersed to all corners of the space. “Can I help with—” she starts, and is interrupted.

“You’re here to take care of Henry,” she snaps. “Keep him in the living room.”

“Oh, of course,” Zelena snarls. She’s shaking slightly, and this close, Emma can see sweat forming at her hairline. “Couldn’t possibly have the precious boy have any communication with his aunty, could we? Does he even know I exist?”

“I had hoped you would meet him when you got clean,” Regina says. “Shall we go to my study? Ms Swan, do your job.”

It’s a tense hour, waiting for the doorbell to ring. Emma tries to engage Henry in the stupid, terrible puzzle again but he seems to fold in on himself, curling up on the couch, with a book open on his knees and staring blankly ahead. He has his protective wall up, and she’s helpless in the face of it.

To pass the time, she looks up The Gale Foundation, and finds out it’s in Portland, which explains where Regina was on Emma’s arrival. It seems like a pleasant place, given what it’s for, and it certainly costs a lot. Emma doubts Zelena’s paying for it. Zelena’s skirt had been too tight and had faded from black to a murky grey, and Emma had noticed her limping, a sure sign the soles of her shoes had worn through. She recognises the signs of poverty; you never really forget your roots.

Finally, the doorbell rings and Zelena is removed. Regina enters the living room. “Henry,” she says, a sort of desperate exhaustion in her voice. 

And with that single word the pressure cooker blows.

“You keep lying to me,” Henry screams, leaping up. “I  _ hate _ you!” And before either of them can stop him, he has run out the door and down the street.

Emma stands, frozen, for a moment, before running after him, but it’s too late; he has disappeared into the dark. She calls Mary Margaret from the in front of the mansion. “I think Henry’s run to your place,” she says. “Bit of a rough day.”

Sure enough, ten very tense minutes of searching later, Mary Margaret calls Emma to tell her Henry has arrived. Emma runs back to the house, to find Regina on the phone with Mary Margaret. Emma watches her pace her office, barely speaking.

“He’s going to stay over there tonight,” Regina says, and she sinks down onto the couch, head in her hands.

Emma sits down beside her. “He’s just—confused,” she says. She reaches out a hand to comfort, before withdrawing it, letting it rest uselessly on her own thigh.

“He hates me,” she replies. “You heard him.”

“He’s angry,” Emma says. “Maybe,” she adds more hesitantly, “maybe you should talk to him about—stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“You know,” Emma says, aware of how inadequate she is at talking about emotions, “stuff.”

Regina scoffs disbelievingly, and leaves the room. Emma is pretty convinced she has ruined everything ever, but a minute later Regina is back with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s and two teaspoons. She hands one to Emma. “I deserve this,” she says, “And I don’t want to eat alone.”

So Emma sits down next to her and scoops out a chunk of ice cream. Her knee brushes against Regina’s and Regina doesn’t jerk away, but shifts her leg closer, lets her stockinged foot brush against Emma’s bare one. Emma is hyper-aware of her touch, can barely think in this close proximity. 

“Tell me about your sister,” Emma says. Although she’s pieced together the basics, no one in town has ever mentioned a second Mills sister before now, not even Mary Margaret. 

Regina sighs. “I’d rather not talk about Zelena,” she says, scooping out ice cream. The way she licks the spoon clean makes Emma feel mildly faint, and Regina seems to realise it, her tongue darting out between her lips to catch a drop of ice cream at the corner of her mouth, the fingers of her free hand running through her hair to shake it loose. Emma’s eyes follow the movement. 

“Is there anything I can do that’ll help?” she asks, voice hoarse.

And Regina looks at her for a long moment, lips curving into a viciously seductive smile, eyes darkening and narrowing. Her free hand drops from her hair to Emma’s knee, thumb tracing back and forward. Emma’s breath hitches. Then, Regina says, “A movie would be nice.”

She reaches across Regina for the remote, arm grazing against Regina’s chest as she does so. She feels Regina shudder at the touch and it thrills her. “Any requests?” she asks, scrolling through Netflix.

Regina spoons another scoop of ice cream, before putting the lid back on and standing. “You choose,” she says and leaves.

Emma sits, paralysed by what now seems like too big a decision. Regina returns with a blanket and sits closer than she was before, throwing the blanket over both of them, and Emma presses play on the first thing she sees.

“Interesting choice,” Regina says, and Emma can  _ hear  _ the smirk as the credits roll for  _ How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days _ . 

“I just love Matthew McConaughey,” Emma says weakly. Regina laughs, and leans her head against Emma’s shoulder and apparently this is how she’s going to actually die. Regina’s hair curls against the bare skin of Emma’s shoulder and she lets out a breathy sigh. 

It’s fortunate that the movie is terrible because Emma has no idea what’s happening in it. All she knows is that about half an hour in, Regina’s hand slides up her leg to rest on her thigh, the faint touch feeling like the pressure of a thousand tonnes. She gasps, and Regina removes her hand, the removal of which is like a physical pain.

It’s about an hour in, that Emma realises Regina’s crying. She presses pause, waits. “What can I do?” she asks when Regina doesn’t seem to be close to stopping.

“Hold me,” Regina says, almost as a question, and so Emma does, pulling Regina into her arms, her head resting against Emma’s chest. Her heart beats quickly and she can smell Regina’s perfume, traces the knobs of her spine with her fingertips. It’s dark outside, the night still and quiet, stars visible in inky black sky. 

“What can I do?” she asks again.

And Regina looks at her, lidded eyes, and whispers, “Make me forget.” 

And so Emma does, kissing Regina, tasting the salt of tears on her lips, a reminder of the sea, of all that is strange and mutable and dangerous about Regina Mills. She kisses her, fingers winding through Regina’s hair. She kisses her, biting at her bottom lip until Regina lets out a gasp of pleasure. 

She kisses her, and Regina kisses back.

It’s as if something in her snaps in that moment, the kisses turning wild, fervent, dangerous. Regina nips at Emma’s jaw, sucks on her neck in a way that is definitely going to bruise, digs her fingers into the skin of Emma’s back. 

“You’re so  _ pretty _ ,” Emma murmurs when they break apart. It’s utterly inane, but Regina’s eyes widen, and she smiles, soft and vulnerable. “I want to touch you.”

“ _ God _ ,” Regina half-hisses. “Please.” She’s wild like this, lipstick smeared around her mouth, hair on end, shirt untucked. Emma straddles her. Her fingers fiddle with the top button of Regina’s shirt, pressing kisses to her clavicle, to the curve her neck. 

Regina leans back against the couch, shirt open to reveal lace and chest rising and falling rapidly. One hand is on Emma’s thigh, gripping tight when Emma kisses lower, traversing the valley between her breasts with kisses, mouthing her nipple through the thin lace. “No time for teasing, Ms Swan,” Regina hisses. 

“I think we’re due for first name basis now,” Emma says, pulling her own tank top off and unclasping her bra in what she wishes was a fluid movement, but in fact results in her hair getting tangled up in her bra strap. “Ow, Jesus,” she mutters, tugging fruitlessly. 

“Let me,” Regina says, and untangles it gently. Her fingers brush against Emma’s cheek, the soft touch intoxicating. “You’re such an idiot,” she adds, and the moment is gone. 

“Could an idiot do this?” Emma asks, and kisses her way down Regina’s chest, sliding to kneel on the ground, and unbuttoning the slacks, hand brushing against the silky fabric of her underwear as she does so.

“I mean, yes, probably,” Regina says, lifting her bottom from the couch to assist in the removal of her trousers, but then she lets out a ragged gasp because Emma kisses up her inner thigh, nipping at soft, velvety skin. Her knuckles brush against the damp gusset of her underwear and Regina squirms, body lifting and tensing. 

“Perhaps I should just stop,” Emma says, fingers brushing against the top of her thighs. “I wouldn’t want you to—”

“If you stop now, they will never find your body,” Regina promises, and so Emma pushes aside the underwear and stops speaking altogether, lost in the taste of Regina beneath her tongue and the slick heat surrounding her fingers and the sound of Regina’s pants and moans.

When Regina comes apart, she’s glorious, body jerking into an arc, silent but for a loud intake of air, eyes closed, sweat glistening on her forehead, hair wild. Her hands clutch at Emma’s back and hair. The shirt she’s still half-wearing, falls down her shoulders. Emma licks and sucks and fingers her through a second orgasm, and then a third, in quick succession, until Regina hands loosen their grip and her body relaxes, head flopping back against the couch. She raises one hand to her face, covering her eyes, the other still tangled loosely in Emma’s hair. 

Emma rests her head against Regina’s bare thigh, presses a soft kiss to velvety skin. “You good?” she asks.

Regina doesn’t answer immediately. Then she stands, pulling Emma up with her. “Upstairs,” she says.

“What?” Emma asks.

“I’m not fucking you on the couch,” Regina says impatiently. “Upstairs. Now.”

And what can Emma do but follow?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting slightly early because Ao3 is down for a few hours tomorrow evening.


	8. In which Emma wakes for witching hour

_“Men are simpler than you imagine, my sweet child. But what goes on in the twisted, tortuous minds of women would baffle anyone.”_

_―_ _Rebecca_ _, Daphne du Maurier_

When Emma wakes the next morning, her bed is empty, although the space beside her is still warm. There’s a pleasant ache between her thighs and she feels rested, at peace. Even the weather seems to be mirroring her contentment; hazy sunlight filters through her thin curtains, warming her bare skin.

Probably she should feel upset that Regina isn’t lying there beside her, but it’s not like they’d pledged their eternal troth last night. It was a one time thing, born of sadness and desire. And perhaps she should feel upset that she just slept with her employer, but it doesn’t feel like a violation or a corruption of power. It feels right, good.

All she wants to think about now is the taste of salt on skin, the feel of smooth skin beneath her fingertips, and the sound of Regina’s heart beating. While she wants to lie in bed longer, reality beckons. The Henry situation needs dealing with. And so, groaning, she crawls out of bed and into the shower.

When she makes her way downstairs, Regina is fully dressed (which Emma considers a massive disappointment) and is drinking coffee. She looks up when Emma enters. “Could you pick Henry up?” she asks, before returning her gaze to her mug. “Mary Margaret just called to say that he’s awake.”

So, apparently they’re not going to talk about last night. And in this moment Emma decides she is spectacularly chill with the not talking situation.

“Need coffee,” she mumbles, and Regina hands her a travel mug, before ushering her into the hall and out the door.

Due to the fine weather, Emma decides to walk to Mary Margaret’s apartment. Storybrooke is out in force, enjoying the rare sunlight, and a ten minute walk takes nearer to half an hour. Tamara is outside Granny’s with a takeaway coffee and Emma finds it in her heart to not feel resentful of the sheriff, grinning cheerfully at her; Tamara quirks an eyebrow, bemused.  

She barely has to knock before Mary Margaret opens the door. “Come in, come in!” she says, beaming. Despite the early hour, she’s dressed in another designer bird print, hair artfully coiffed, making Emma, who threw on the first clothes she found that weren’t directly _in_ the laundry basket, feel like she just crawled out of the sewers. Henry is sitting at the breakfast bar of the open-plan apartment, eating cereal and kicking his feet against the rungs of the stool. He looks more exhausted than usual, the bags under his eyes purple against his pale skin.

“Ready to go, kid?” Emma asks. “Thanks, Mary Margaret,” she adds when Henry, without saying a word, slides of the stool and goes to the door to put his shoes on. He’s moving slowly, sloth-like, as though he knows just how much trouble he could be in.

“It was my pleasure,” Mary Margaret says. “How’s Regina doing? I didn’t even know she had a sister!”

“That seems to be a theme,” Emma says, though she doesn’t encourage Mary Margaret’s desire for gossip. “She’s—fine.” She can’t help but smile at that, and, of course, Mary Margaret notices.

“You look happy,” she says, pastel pink lips quirking into a smile of their own.

“I slept well,” she says, though she can feel her skin heat up and is sure she must be turning a particularly unattractive shade of pink. “Come on, Henry!”

They walk out together. “Enjoy your first ever ‘walk of shame’, kid,” Emma says.

“What?” he asks. He’s dragging his feet, scuffing his sneakers, and he still hasn’t looked her in the eye since her arrival.

“Never mind,” Emma says, and wraps an arm around his shoulder, squeezing him in an awkward half-hug. His bony elbow digs into her side. “Shall we get your mom some of the beignets she likes?”

Tiana’s food truck is a Sunday morning only thing; during the week, she teaches food technology at the local high school. She only sells hot cocoa and the most amazing beignets, and Emma has heard Regina emit a sound that she now knows is an authentic noise of arousal biting into one.

Henry just shrugs, but they stop at the food truck, and Emma gets them both hot cocoa. “With cinnamon,” Tiana says, handing Henry both his cocoa and the paper bag that is already translucent with grease. “I know what y’all like.”

Henry smiles weakly at her.

Emma expects Regina to be pacing the hall when they return, but she is seated at the kitchen table, The Storybrooke Mirror open in front of her. Emma notices, however, that the paper is upside down, and that Regina is staring rather determinedly at the kitchen door. “Mom?” Henry says, hesitant. “We brought you beignets.”

“Sit down, Henry,” she says, gesturing at the chair in front of her. Henry sits, staring at the kitchen table.

Emma’s not really sure whether to stay or go, and Regina gives her no indication either way, and so she settles for unpacking the dishwasher. “Firstly, if you ever run away from home again,” Regina says, “you will be grounded for so long, you’ll be at college before you get to play video games again.”

Henry fiddles with the sleeves of his sweater. “‘M sorry,” he mumbles.

“Second,” Regina continues. “I’m aware that you feel I haven’t been truthful with you, and for that I’m more sorry than I can say.”

Emma breaks a plate. Regina and Henry swivel, offering identical glares. “Sorry,” she murmurs, sweeping the shards into the trash.

“I only found out about your aunt last year,” she says. “Zelena’s had a hard life and she’s not in a healthy place right now. I want for you to know her, for _us_ to know her, but I can’t have you around her until she’s stable.”

“Why did you only just find out about her?” Henry asks.

“My mother...” Regina pauses, swallows. “She gave Zelena up.”

“Like me,” Henry says, sitting up a little straighter, leaning forward in his chair.

“Like you,” Regina acknowledges. “Sort of.”

Henry nods, and looks over at Emma. “It’d be nice to have a bigger family,” he says. Then, so hesitantly, voice almost a whisper, he says, “Mom—”

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Regina says. Her hands lie on the table in front of her. She strokes her left thumb against the nail of her right index finger. Emma has given up any pretence of cleaning up, and is standing at the sink with a clean mug in her hand and watching them. “I thought—I don’t know what I thought. That you’d shut me out, stop loving me.” She laughs, the sound bleak and hollow and anything but amused.

Henry’s eyes widen, horrified. “You think I don’t love you?” he asks. “You’re my mom.”

And Emma watches, watches as Regina reaches out a hand and clasps Henry’s in hers, and Regina’s eyes are bright, glistening with tears, and Henry grins tremulously, and Emma thinks she might cry and has to make a speedy exit from the room.

To be that wanted, to be that loved, is a perfect thing.

That night, when the ghost comes and Henry wakes up screaming and gasping, Emma watches through the gap in the door, as Regina tucks Henry back in and presses a soft kiss to his forehead and sings, soft and low and not especially tuneful, in a language Emma thinks must be Spanish.

It sounds like protection, like love, like a promise.

“Your abuelo used to sing this to me when I couldn’t sleep,” Regina murmurs, stroking the hair back from his forehead. “I don’t even know what it means.”

“We should find out,” Henry says, yawning.

Regina waits until he is breathing slowly and evenly once more, before leaving. “Nosy,” she murmurs to Emma, grabbing her hand and leading her down the hall to Emma’s bedroom.

She thinks briefly that perhaps they should talk about whatever this is becoming, but soon enough breathing is problem enough, never mind framing the relationship.

***

The next week is taken up entirely with Halloween preparation. Henry, who was listless and disinterested at the mention of Halloween the previous week, has discovered renewed energy for the holiday now that he and his mother are talking. They’d discussed his adoption day the previous night at dinner and Regina had told him about the first time she’d held him in her arms. “You looked like an angry, red tomato,” she’d told him, and he’d scrunched up his nose in disgust. “And you were the most beautiful thing in the world.”

Henry is asleep when Regina arrives home that night, and so Emma has had to endure the hours of chatter about Halloween, which houses have the best candy, what all his classmates are dressing as, the promise of cookies shaped like bats from Mary Margaret, alone.

“You’re aware he’s got some theme worked out. We’ll end up in a couple’s costume if we’re not careful,” Emma says, piling spaghetti bolognese onto a plate for Regina. She is seated at the kitchen island, with a highlighter in one hand, and is marking up a document.

“Mmm,” Regina says, not looking up. She has a streak of fluorescent pink down one cheek. Emma contemplates telling her, but decides it’s cute.

“Parmesan?” Emma asks, sprinkling a generous serving on top without waiting for the answer. She sticks the plate on top of the file. “Work will be here tomorrow,” she says when Regina scowls. “Or in fifteen minutes when you’ve eaten something. Have you eaten today?”

“Energy bar in my desk drawer,” Regina says, practically shovelling spaghetti in her mouth. It’s a far cry from the sophisticated, menacing mayor Emma met just over a month ago.

“You need to eat better,” Emma says.

“Yes, dear,” Regina says, dismissive. “If our costumes turn out to be Harry Potter themed, I'm Hermione, by the way.”

“But I'd look so stupid as a ginger,” Emma whines. Pettily, she steals a slice of garlic bread from Regina’s plate.

“I think you'd look pretty cute,” Regina says, reaching across the kitchen island to push a lock of blonde hair behind Emma's ear.

“ _You’re_ pretty cute,” Emma says, before her brain catches up with her mouth, and Regina stands, slinking around to her side of the kitchen island, and kisses her, pulling Emma close to her with a hand on the back of her neck.

However, as it turns out, Henry wants Regina to dress up as a queen. “And me?” Emma asks. “White knight?”

Henry stares blankly at her. “That’s my costume.” Instead, he hands her a bag. It jingles ominously.

And so it is that Emma finds herself walking through Storybrooke two evenings later dressed as a jester. “Unbelievable,” she grumbles, the bells on her shoes ringing at every step. Regina makes a sound suspiciously like a snort. “I want a payrise for this,” she adds, glaring at Regina who apparently cannot stop smiling.

“You don’t see me complaining, do you?” she says, adjusting her tiara in the car window.

“You look like Elena of Avalor,” Emma says. “There’s no contest here.”

Henry, who has run ahead to stare in awe at a front yard turned into a full graveyard, runs back and wraps his hand into Emma’s. “So much chocolate,” he says, eyes wide. He already has a ring of brown around his mouth. His pupils are pin pricks.

“Would have thought you’d be the sort of mom to check his candy for razor blades,” Emma says, watching Regina pull a kleenex from a secret pocket in her gown and wipe Henry’s mouth.

“It’s Storybrooke,” she says as though that’s answer enough.

And perhaps it is. Emma lifts Henry up, spinning him around until he pretends to puke on her shoulder. She’s grinning and Henry grins back. Regina watches them, and while she’s smiling, there is something intent and not all that pleasant in her gaze.

They continue walking. At one house, almost as grand as her own home and with no decorations up, Regina suggests they don’t go to the door, but Henry spots a group of kids on the doorstep and insists. Emma watches Henry scamper ahead, but notices that Regina has tensed, and that the smile that has been present on her face this whole night has stiffened.

The door opens to an older man, face lined and stern, and still dressed in a suit. “Trick or Treat!” Henry says, beaming.

“Well, well,” the man says. There is cruelty in his tone. “Mayor Mills—or should I say, Your Majesty?”

“Mr Spencer,” Regina says, her smile tight.

“The costume surprises me,” he says. “Seems as though there would be something more appropriate for Cora Mills’ daughter. A witch, perhaps? Or murderess?”

“Surely Storybrooke’s legal representatives have moved on from seventeenth century witch hunts, Mr Spencer,” Regina says tightly. Emma steps closer, but it’s hard to threatening when, with every step, she jingles.

Henry is looking between his mother and Spencer, his plastic pumpkin half-full of candy resting forgotten by his feet. “Are you okay, Mom?” he asks.

“Fine, sweetheart,” she says. “I think we’re done here.”

“I still haven’t given the boy a treat,” Spencer says.

“I don’t want anything from _you_ ,” Henry says.

“Henry,” Regina says. “It’s okay.”

“You were mean to my mom,” he says, and he wraps a hand in Regina’s, picks up his pumpkin bucket. “Let’s go.”

The mood is gone after this, and Henry insists on sticking close to his mother for the rest of the night. They end up at Granny’s, where Emma is treated to the sight of Gwen dressed as a medieval princess and flirting up a storm with the sheriff, whose sole concession to the festivities is a pair of cat ears. The diner is a sea of noise and colour—Ruby is serving mugs of hot cider in an alarmingly frightening wolf costume, and Emma waves at Marian and Mulan, dressed as Batwoman and Wonder Woman respectively—and they sit in their own isolated island, a mug of cider apiece.

“Why did Mr Spencer call you a witch?” Henry asks.

“Oh, honey, that’s not important,” Regina says. Emma notices her fidget with the tiara she has removed from her hair.

“No,” Henry insists. “You said you’d tell the truth.”

Regina sighs. “My mother wasn’t a very nice woman,” she says eventually. Her voice shakes on the word ‘nice’, and Emma slips her left hand beneath the table, rubs her thumb along the Regina’s thigh, covered by a thick layer of cheap satin. “People used to say things about her…”

Henry nestles more closely to her. “Like they say things about you sometimes?”

“I hoped you would never hear those things,” she says. “I’ve tried to protect you.”

“They’re not true, right?”

Regina sighs. “Let’s get you home.”

Henry crashes halfway home, and Emma ends up giving him a piggyback ride, putting him down on his bed and helping Regina strip off his armor. Emma leans his sword against the bedside table, and follows Regina from the room. “Thanks,” Regina says, though she mostly just looks pretty sad and tired.

“I can help you with your costume,” Emma says, waggling her eyebrows.

She is only sort of joking, but she’s not surprised when Regina gives her a tired smile, and declines. “I’m exhausted,” she says.

“You did good today,” Emma says, touching her shoulder.

“Your approval means the word to me, Ms Swan,” Regina snaps, and then her eyes soften and she leans forward, pressing a light kiss to the corner of Emma’s mouth. “Get some sleep.”

Emma presses her fingers to the place of the kiss, watching Regina disappear into her room. Then, she returns to her own, stripping off her ridiculous bells, pulling on a loose shirt, and crawling into bed. She falls asleep instantly, without even turning off the lamp.

She wakes to the town clock chiming midnight. Something is wrong. Very wrong. She rubs her eyes blearily.

“Finally, you’re awake,” says a voice. Emma looks up, suddenly wide awake. Sitting in the rocking chair in her room is a woman.

Henry’s ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accidentally deleted this from google docs. Thank goodness for restoring past edits because there's no way I could have written this again in time for deadline.
> 
> Thank you so much to those who are reading and reviewing. I appreciate it more than I can say.


	9. In which poison enters our heroine's heart

_ “Remember my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory and we should not trust the weaker.” _

_ — _ _ Dracula _ _ , Bram Stoker _

 

Emma wants to punch the woman in the face, or to run from the room, screaming in fear, or to close her eyes and pretend none of this is happening, but she can’t. She’s paralysed, body stiff and eyes fixed wide and horrified on the figure settled into the rocking chair. It’s Henry’s ghost. The woman from her own nightmares. 

Realisation dawns, all too slowly. She’s the woman, the one who stands outside the house, looking up at Emma’s window.

“Oh, do calm down,” the woman says, a touch impatiently. She brushes curled hair back over her shoulder; it might have been red when she was alive, but her whole form is greying, blurred, like a faded photograph, and, because of that, the waves of hair take on a muted shade closer to sepia. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Then, she smiles, the falseness of it sharp and unsettling.

Emma’s hand twitches convulsively against her bedspread. Her hand creates a dark shadow against the cotton. The woman’s body, in contrast, casts no shadow, nor does it leave an indent in the soft cushion of the chair. It’s unnerving, to say the least. “Who—What—?” she starts.

“Who I am is not important,” the woman says. She’s dressed in an outfit that wouldn’t be out of place in Regina’s wardrobe, a sensible pantsuit and blouse, and she crosses her legs, leaning back in the chair. “I’m sorry to say, dear, that you are in danger every moment you stay in this house.”

Honestly, what Emma thinks she is most in danger of is laughter, feeling the hysteria bubble further up inside her every moment this horrific farce continues. “What?”

“Regina Mills is a murderer.”

This time she does laugh, the sound mocking in the quiet of the room. “Don’t think you can feed me the same bullshit you pulled with the kid. I’m not so easily fooled.”

“Language,” the woman says reprovingly. Emma feels the swell of laughter build in her once more. She’s being told off by a fucking ghost. Is this even real life? She pinches herself, hoping that she’ll wake up and discover this has all been another weird dream. It hurts. “I don’t need to  _ feed  _ you anything.”

“Because I know the truth in my heart?” she asks, snorting. There’s a  _ ghost _ in her room. A freaking ghost.

The woman smiles, her lips curved a cruel, familiar scarlet, almost bright against the dull colouring of her skin and her sharp white teeth. “I can  _ show _ you.” And she glides forward, pressing one long, skeletal finger to Emma’s forehead. She feels a chill seep into her, feels her eyes grow heavy. Emma sinks into the bed, feeling as though she’ll sink right through the mattress, through the floorboards, into the earth. 

When she opens her eyes, the sunlight is so bright it’s blinding—brighter than she’s ever seen in Storybrooke before—and her bare feet feel soft grass beneath her feet. Momentarily, she is discombobulated, her head spinning. A horse gallops wildly towards her, out of control and bearing a little girl who is screaming out for help. “Watch out,” the ghost murmurs, the soft voice sounding as though it is coming from inside her own head, and Emma leaps out of the way, with barely the time to miss the second horse galloping towards the little girl and its rider pulling her from the runaway. The little girl is set down on the solid ground and the rider slides from the saddle gracefully, removing her helmet and patting her long braid.

Looking more closely, Emma sees that it is Mary Margaret and Regina. “You saved my life!” Mary Margaret squeaks and, as the image starts to fade away, Emma sees the achingly young Regina bend down and smile at Mary Margaret with a smile Emma has always assumed to be reserved solely for Henry. 

When the world becomes clear again, she finds herself watching in the shadows of a stable as Regina approaches a young man, dressed in age-worn boots and jeans. He’s smiling softly, a cowlick of dark hair sticking straight up, and his eyes look kind. “Daniel,” Regina says, more a sigh than a voice, and pulls him towards her and into a kiss. The boy cups the back of her head with his hand, his fingers threading through Regina’s long, loose curls. 

It’s all so sweetly, blissfully innocent. 

A noise echoes in the stable from where Emma stands and watches, and Regina whirls around, pushing the boy aside. Her eyes bore into the spot where Emma stands, and there is horror etched in every line of her face at whatever it is she sees there. That’s when Emma notices that the boy has stumbled at the push and fallen backwards, his head hitting the sharp prongs of a rake. Blood seeps from the head wound into the hay, a dark, sickening red. 

The image fades once more and Emma is trapped, something heavy crushing her chest, sharp shards of glass slicing into her flesh. She can’t breathe, can’t move, can barely see. 

“Mother?” It’s Regina, barely older than the girl in the stables. However, instead of riding clothes, she is now dressed in a white gown, unfinished, the lace overlay pinned to the silk and the sleeves unhemmed. Her wedding dress. There is something desperate in Regina’s expression, something desperate and horrified and trapped.

Emma feels her eyes flutter shut, while Regina just stands there, frozen.

In the third vision, Emma stands over the broken body of an elderly man in striped pyjamas, lying at the foot of the stairs in the foyer of the Mifflin Street mansion. She looks up. Standing at the the top of the staircase and looking down at the body is Regina, her lips tensed into a sharp, harsh line. 

There is nothing behind those dark eyes. Then, a flash of triumph. 

“Come back, dear,” the voice says again, and she squeezes her eyes tight, desperately trying to rid her mind of the images that have been emblazoned on her brain, and she’s back in her room. 

She shudders, wrapping her blankets around herself and shaking even though the room is warm. “Why would you show me those things?”

“It’s important to know who you are getting into bed with,” the woman says, and she smirks as though telling a little private joke.

Emma thinks of the rumours spread around town, of Henry’s own beliefs, of how very real and terrifying what she has just seen felt to her. “Regina wouldn’t hurt me,” she says, aiming for real conviction and feeling the tremor in her voice. “She wouldn’t hurt anyone.” 

The woman watches her for a long moment, and Emma juts her chin out stubbornly. Then, the woman smiles. “Not even if she discovered you were the child’s real mother?” she says.

“I don’t have a child,” Emma says though she is cold again, despite the warmth of the blankets. 

“On the second of March, 2006, a young woman called Emma Swan gave up a boy for adoption,” the woman says. “On the fourth of March, 2006, Regina Mills adopted a baby boy from Boston Memorial Hospital.” The smile turns triumphant. This is her trump card. “She’s no fool, you know. She will begin to suspect, perhaps she already does. She will start investigating. When she finds out—” She trails off. “Well, you can imagine how well Regina will take that information.” 

“You’re Regina’s mother,” Emma says, it all seeming so obvious now. “You’re Cora Mills.”

“Yes,” the woman says. “I just want my daughter to be safe. Even after everything she’s done—to me, and others. I can help you, but you have to leave.”

Emma realises she has been picking at the purple embroidered ‘A’ on her baby blanket, the silk unravelling clean away from the knit. “I think you should go.”

“As you wish, dear,” the woman says, and she vanishes.

***

Emma can’t believe it, she won’t believe it. She stomps around the house, adamantly not believing it. She lets Regina’s fingers trail down her arm while they are working in the kitchen together, a promise in her touch, refusing to believe it. She helps Henry with his homework, suppressing thoughts of even the possibility that he is her son, that his mother is as dangerous as he once told her.

Except that she looks at Henry and sees the man who impregnated her in every feature. Except that she starts listening to the rumours, the things people say around town when they think Henry and Emma aren’t listening. Except that it all makes a sickening sort of sense. The ghost’s stories twist and worm their way into her heart, growing strong, growing bitter. 

“Who’s Henry’s biological mother?” she asks. Regina has returned home early that day, and Emma is helping her to peel potatoes.

Regina stiffens. “It was a closed adoption,” she says. She won’t meet Emma’s gaze, and Emma reads guilt into this. “The records are sealed.”

“But what happens if Henry wants to know her?” She cuts an eye from the potato, taking out too big a chunk and wincing at the waste.

“My son has abandonment issues a mile long,” Regina says, manipulating the knife with precision. “Why would he want anything to do with the woman who gave him up?” She huffs in frustration when the potato skin she’s been peeling in one long, smooth chain breaks. “Ms Swan, I don’t wish to discuss this.” 

“Sure,” Emma says, but she frowns down at her hands. Henry enters the kitchen at this point, stealing a cookie from the jar, and the subject is left closed. But all Emma can think when she looks at Henry as he pleads with Regina for the cookie is,  _ mine. Mineminemine. _

She hates it, the way the words twist and coil into her brain like a disease. He’s not hers. He never will be. But, oh! She wonders.

Cora visits her nightly in her dreams. In some, she’s trapped beneath glass while Regina looks on; in others, she takes on the role of Leopold Blanchard, lying broken at the foot of the stairs. She dreams of Henry, of the baby boy she never held, of a lifetime they could have had together, making him scrambled eggs on a lazy Sunday morning, dancing along with the radio, Henry watering the collection of plants in their apartment… In these dreams, Regina appears, snatches him from her, trains him to look at Emma with hate in his eyes. 

Cora whispers in her ear.  _ “Escape. Leave now. Get out while you still can.” _

One night, Regina lies in bed beside Emma. She’s broken their unspoken rule (and everything is unspoken in this...whatever this is), having fallen asleep after several frantic orgasms, pulled from her in an almost frenzy as Emma overcompensated for her doubts, her suspicions, her petty jealousies. That night, with Regina curled up beside her and breathing evenly, Emma dreams that she murders her. She bakes poison into an apple turnover, watches Emma eat it with a smile on her painted lips, stands over her as Emma collapses.

Emma wakes, screaming, but Regina has gone, the space beside her cold.

She has to know. She has to know that Cora Mills was lying to her. She has to rid herself of the persistent rot, eating away at her brain.

That next evening, once Henry has gone to bed, it seems unspoken that Emma will curl up on the couch with Regina while she responds to emails, reading glasses perched on her nose, and wearing fuzzy pink socks to ward off the chill. “Why don’t you have any photographs around the place?” Emma asks. 

Regina rolls her eyes. “Why should I?”

“It’s just,” she says, “It’s strange. When I first got here, I was surprised not to see any wedding pictures...”

“I’m hardly going to memorialise the day I was shackled to that man til death do us part,” Regina says flatly.

She can’t help but read into Regina’s words, can’t help but consider the death that came prematurely for one of them. “I mean, I get that,” Emma says. “Just, people talk, right? People like Mary Margaret must think you’re glad he’s dead.”

Regina continues to type, eyes fixed on the screen, though her body has tensed beside her. “I am.”

“Did you do it?” 

Regina slams her laptop shut, standing so suddenly that Emma is knocked from the couch. “What,” she whispers. Her eyes darken and she clenches her hands into fists so tightly her knuckles turn white as bone. 

“There are these rumours,” Emma says, scrambling to her feet, because at least paying credence to the rumours around town seems less crazy than the ghost of her mother coming back to gossip with the hired help. “I just wondered—”

“Stop this,” Regina says, dangerous. 

“You’re not denying it,” Emma says.

“I said,” and Regina voice lowers, forceful, intense, full of anger, “ _ stop _ .”

“Fine,” Emma snaps because she’s nothing if not an idiot with no impulse control. Cora Mills’ words beat through her brain, quick and loud as a heartbeat.  _ Danger. Murderer. Real Mother. _  “Don’t talk. Listen. Did your boyfriend die when you pushed him away from you that night in the stables? Did you watch as your mother died slowly and painfully, trapped under that mirror? Did you push your husband down the stairs of this house?”

Regina says nothing. Her face has grown very bloodless and very cold, and her chest rises and falls in sharp, shuddering breaths. She wraps her arms tightly around herself, shoulders shaking, and her mouth opens to speak, but nothing comes out. 

It is then that Emma realises she has done something inexpressibly evil. 

“It’s what Henry is worried about, you know,” she says, weakly. “I just need you to be able to tell me it’s all a lie.”

“You’re fired,” Regina says, a muscle in her jaw working. “I want you out of my town immediately.”

“Regina—”

“Get out!” Regina yells this, her words echoing through the house, hitting Emma like a sword in the gut.

It doesn’t take her long to pack and the good news is that she can do it while Henry’s asleep. 

She looks back at the house one final time from through the grimy side window of the bug. The sky above is dark and clouded, faint rain falling like ash. There’s something anxious, mournful about the mansion, curtains closed at every window and the balcony drooping like a frown. Tree branches are skeletal fingers; she imagines them reaching from the graveyard of ground and clawing at someone’s ankle, pulling them, choking, beneath the earth.

The rain bears down harder now, hard pellets pattering against the bonnet of the car.

In the driveway, lit by the street lights, Henry’s bicycle lies, abandoned, a splash of scarlet in the gloom. Regina is going to be furious he left it out to rust, and her fingers twitch at the door handle, anxious to go and put it in the garage for him.

Not your responsibility anymore, she thinks. 

At the master bedroom window, a curtain twitches. For one brief, shining moment, she thinks it’s her and her heart leaps. Emma has to leave, she knows, but perhaps they can finally, finally talk. Perhaps she’ll ask Emma to stay. Perhaps she’s wanted after all. Perhaps they could be happy together in Storybrooke, her and Regina and Henry—her, no  _ their _ , son. Then the figure becomes clear and it’s not Regina after all, but Cora Mills, her arms folded, her smile sharp as a knife. She stares down at Emma, surveying her terrain, like a queen. 

Emma turns the key in the ignition and drives off into the gloom, orange lights guiding her way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mari, thank you for letting me get out all my anxieties about this chapter with you.


	10. In which our heroine's journey is interrupted

_ “I was thinking that being a demon and a ghost must be very difficult, even for Charles; if he ever forgot, or let his disguise drop for a minute, he would be recognized at once and driven away; he must be extremely careful to use the same voice every time, and present the same face and the same manner without a slip; he must be constantly on guard against betraying himself. I wondered if he would turn back to his true self when he was dead.” _

― _ We Have Always Lived in the Castle _ _ , Shirley Jackson _

 

She manages to make it to the outskirts of town before the motor of the bug sputters and dies, leaving her stranded on the edge of the road in the growing, growling darkness. Swearing, she gets out of the car, intent on fixing the motor herself, determined to ignoring the looming woods and the feeling that if she walks into the trees, she will find herself in a place she shouldn’t be.

The wind whistles.  _ Turn back. Stay away. Beware. _ She hears a wolf howl, and is reminded of Gwen’s stories of werewolves, of headless men, of changeling girls stolen from the woods. 

It’s freezing out at the edge of town, the damp seeping into her very bones, and she tells herself that’s why she’s shivering.

It is impossible to fix a motor in the dark and chill, even when you’re trying desperately hard to be self-sufficient and independent, and  _ especially  _ when you’re upset, she quickly realises. She can barely see the motor with the faint light of the torch on her phone and so, sighing, she dials the number of the only person she knows is obligated to not judge her for her idiocy, and tucks the phone to her ear. “Hey, it’s Emma Swan. I’m out on the edge of town, near the ‘Welcome’ sign. My motor’s died.”

Then she sits on the trunk of a fallen tree and waits. Only a short time later, the beam of the police cruiser headlights finds her, as she’s sitting on the side of the road, her jacket wrapped around her shoulders and shaking with cold. 

“I’m judging you,” Tamara informs her when she gets out of the cruiser, and Emma feels horribly betrayed at this state of affairs. Tamara wraps her scarf more tightly around her neck and flicks her long, dark hair over her shoulder, before strolling over to the bug and shining her torch down at the motor. “How on earth could you let this death trap get into this state?”

“I had her serviced, like, three months ago,” Emma says, outraged. It’s so cold her teeth chatter.

“I’ll give you a lift back into town,” Tamara says, sighing and closing the hood of the car. “Can send Michael out with the tow truck tomorrow.”

Emma climbs into the front seat of the police cruiser, warming her hands on the radiator. It is then she notices the oil stains on her fingers, dark, like greasy blood. Her stomach rolls, queasy. “To Regina’s?” Tamara asks, and raises an eyebrow when Emma directs her to take her to the Bed and Breakfast instead. “What did you do?” she asks.

“Why do you assume  _ I  _ did something?” Tamara just raises that eyebrow again. She shuts the door and the overhead light snaps off. It takes a moment for Emma’s eyes to adjust, but there’s something about the dark―only Tamara’s silhouette visible―and being in an enclosed space that makes her feel like being honest. “I might have accused her of murder,” she mumbles.

“The mother or the husband?” Tamara asks. 

“Both.”

Tamara whistles. “You’re lucky you got out with all your limbs intact.” She pulls out onto the road, headlights beaming. It is so still outside, and Emma watches the trees blur past them as they drive. It’s peaceful, so quiet and still, with the only sounds being the hum of the motor and Tamara’s quiet breathing. Emma can hear the pounding of her own heart, proof that she’s alive, in spite of everything. 

“I’ve been with the sheriff’s department a long time,” Tamara says, breaking the silence. “I was just a newbie when Cora Mills died, but I saw Regina when she was brought in.” She taps her fingers against the steering wheel. Emma remembers that Tamara’s nails are always perfectly manicured, and tucks her own fingers under her in a strangely self-conscious gesture, all too aware of her short nails and ragged cuticles. Tamara continues. “She had cuts all over her arms from trying to pull her  mother free, and that godawful monstrosity of a wedding dress was stained with blood.”

A few nights before Cora Mills had paid Emma a visit, Regina had followed Emma to bed where Emma had divested her of her shirt and had been pressing kisses to the sharp curve of her collarbone, moving to her shoulder blades, loving the feel of Regina’s body shuddering beneath her lips. “Could do this all night,” she’d murmured, and Regina had sighed, blissful. But when Emma had kissed lower and had found several raised scars on Regina’s forearms, Regina had stiffened and pulled away, covering herself with the sheets and closing her eyes, shuttering her from the world.

“They’re repulsive,” she’d said.

“You’re beautiful,” Emma had replied, taking Regina’s hands in hers and kissing her hard, one thigh inserting itself between Regina’s legs, her breasts pressing against Regina’s. She’d pressed kisses to Regina’s cheeks, her eyelids, until Regina had laughed and relaxed back into the mattress. 

Everyone has scars, Emma had thought then, and then she hadn’t thought much about it at all.

“I’m such an idiot,” she murmurs.

“And that pervert she married,” Tamara continues, without acknowledging Emma’s words. “I  _ was  _ sheriff then. For what it’s worth, I don’t think she actually pushed him down those stairs, but I didn’t investigate much beyond the coroner’s assessment of ‘heart attack’. He’s dead. She’s free. Good riddance.”

Emma thinks about Regina’s life, thinks about years spent in a loveless prison of a marriage, grieving a boyfriend, a mother, a life that could have been hers. Something sticks in her throat and she lets out a gulping sob of a sound.

The ghost tells the truth, Henry had said, and she’s always been good at sensing the honesty of people’s words. But is it lying to edit the story? To cut key details? To twist the truth into its ugliest possibility? 

Some logical part of her brain, the part that has already escaped the twisted fog of Cora Mills’ words, reminds her that the ghost had also said ‘your son’, had used the words ‘real mother’ to describe Emma. She had so wanted those words to be the truth, had wanted it so desperately she’d sickened for it, but she’s not Henry’s mother. Regina is.  

Tamara looks across at her before returning to the road, and there is hidden steel in her voice when she speaks again. “You’ll find many people in this town care about their mayor, even if they’re a little afraid of what she might do―perhaps because of that.” 

Emma just nods. The rain starts again, drizzle coming down onto the roads, making the tar slick and shimmering. 

“What was Cora Mills like?” she asks Tamara. 

For a long time, Emma thinks Tamara isn’t going to answer. But then, she grips the steering wheel more tightly and lets out a choked sigh. “Evil,” she says. “My dad was sheriff before me. He told me to look out for Regina when he retired, said that even with Cora gone, the evil remained.”

Tamara’s father had been right. Evil  _ had  _ remained. It had lurked in Regina’s house, malignant and oppressive for years, poisoning every good thing. For a second she considers suppressing the guilt she feels at leaving Henry―the son who isn’t hers―in thrall to the ghost, considers pushing away the guilt she feels at confronting Regina. 

But she can’t.

She checks her phone. Nothing. Quickly, she types a message.  _ I’m so sorry. _ It shows as ‘read’ almost instantly, but she doesn’t get a reply. 

Tamara pulls up outside Granny’s. “Got to get back on rounds,” she says. “I’ll message Michael for you when we get back to the station.”

Between the front door and the Bed and Breakfast, Emma gets drenched, shivering like a cat in the rain and cursing her stupid, no good, terrible luck. Ruby gives her a room key, the same room as last time she was here. “What did you do?” she asks, though she grins as if Emma and Regina have had some petty domestic and Emma’s in the dog house.

Emma just shrugs, and Ruby’s smile falls. “I’ll be out of your hair in the morning.” When Ruby looks like she’s going to press her further, she adds, “can I get a coffee?” 

While Ruby makes a fresh pot, Emma disappears to the bathroom and scrubs the oil from her fingers, scrubbing and scouring until her fingers are raw and pink. The pain helps.

She’s onto her second coffee and is staring at her phone, begging for a message, for anything, when the door to the diner slams open, the bang startling Emma so much she spills coffee down her front. “You  _ asshole _ ,” Gwen snarls, storming over. Emma’s never seen her look so poorly put together, dressed in sweatpants and a loose University of Maine sweatshirt, and her normally luscious dark curls pulled into a scrappy ponytail. 

Cold dread seeps through Emma’s veins. She can’t even get one night of people not hating her. “Hi,” she says, weakly, flipping her phone so that it faces down, so Gwen can’t see that she has her message chain with Regina open, waiting hopelessly for those three dots to flash across the screen.

“I’ve just had Mayor Mills on the phone―”

“Is she okay?” Emma interrupts.

“No, you  _ asshole _ ,” Gwen snaps. “She’s got to deal with finding a new nanny for that poor boy because the asshole old nanny bailed on her without warning.” Emma considers telling Gwen that she needs to expand her vocabulary, but thinks better of it.

“I didn’t bail. It wasn’t like that,” Emma says. Even to her own ears, it sounds pathetic. She’d give anything to be back there though, to be cooking dinner with Henry as her sous chef, or to be curled up next to Regina on the couch, or to be telling the malevolent ghost of Cora Mills where to get off.

“What was it like then?” Gwen asks, crossing her arms and glaring. In this pose, she is scarily reminiscent of Regina Mills and Emma’s heart breaks all over again.

Emma just stares at her, not sure how to respond, not sure how to say anything really. “Not like that,” she mumbles eventually.

“I really thought you were different,” Gwen says, and the anger in her voice gives way to exhaustion. Her eyes are tired, eyeliner smudged at the corners. There’s something familiar in Gwen’s exhausted misery, something about it that makes Emma feel kinship, even as Gwen currently radiates hatred towards her. Gwen’s a little in love with Regina, and Emma finds it’s hard not to empathise with that. “I thought you were making her―them―happy. But you’re just like everyone else.”

Then she storms out, leaving Emma behind at the bar. Ruby returns. “More coffee?” she asks. “Grilled cheese?” She’s looking at Emma with something like pity, and in this, Emma realises her humiliation is complete.

“I think I’ll go to bed,” she says, smiling wanly. “Thanks, Ruby.”

“Any time,” she replies and, briefly, pats Emma on the shoulder, the awkward comfort almost undoing her utterly.

But she makes it to her room where she showers, and, muffled by the pounding water and steam, she cries, deep, wrenching sobs because,  _ God, _ this could have been a place to call home, Regina and Henry could have been  _ home, _ and she ruined it like she ruins everything she touches. 

She doesn’t expect to be able to sleep after this, but sleep comes surprisingly easily. It’s dark and cold and she is with the man who impregnated her, stuck beneath the heaving heat and weight of him, and then she is split in two, being told to  _ push, Emma, push _ , but someone holds Emma’s hand, letting her squeeze tight enough to bruise and she thinks it might be Regina.

The comfort fades. She hears Cora’s low voice, words too distant to be understood, and sees Henry, waking, startled, as though in a daze. She watches as he unlatches his bedroom window. 

She hears a scream, harsh, piercing, unmistakably Regina’s voice, and she wakes, her heart pounding and her body sticky with sweat. 

She doesn’t think, can’t think, bolting out of bed dressed only in sweatpants and a tanktop, and running downstairs, past a sleepy Ruby at the front desk, past the dumpsters out the back of the diner, down the empty main road. She steps on broken glass and cuts her foot, but she keeps running, limping through the pain. It’s freezing cold, but she doesn’t feel it. 

_Danger. Henry’s in danger._ _Run._

She arrives at Mifflin Street. The outdoor lights are on, both at the mansion, and at Marian and Mulan’s next door, and the sheriff’s cruiser is parked on the sidewalk, at a haphazard angle. The front door is open and Emma sees Regina standing on the front lawn, Marian’s arm around her shoulder. She is folded in on herself, body slumped, face blank. 

She doesn’t see Henry. Where is he? 

She looks up, and staggers backwards at what she sees. Up on the roof, sitting precariously on the edge, is Henry. 

“I did suggest it would be wise to leave, dear,” Cora Mills whispers in her ear. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about the delay in this chapter, and apologies in advance that the final chapters might not be so prompt.


	11. In which love isn't weakness

_“He was soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.”_

— _Frankenstein_ _, Mary Shelley_

Emma whirls around, but the ghost isn’t there, the stench of her evil and the chill up Emma’s spine the only sign that she is present. Tamara strides past, on the phone. “Damn it, Al,” she hisses. “Stop fucking around and answer your phone.”

“Can I do—” Emma starts, but Tamara is already gone, storming back towards the house. Emma finds herself standing at the end of the drive, invisible, alone, of no use to anyone. She draws in a deep breath, and approaches Regina.

“I can’t get through to the fire station,” Tamara is telling her. “I’ve sent someone round, but it might be a while.”

Regina lets out a sound, somewhere between a howl and a wail. It’s desperate, clawing at her throat, and this is all Emma’s fault. “I’ll go up there,” she says.

Marian glares at her, hand rubbing a circle pattern into Regina’s back, but Regina ignores her. “Henry,” she murmurs, looking up at the roof.

“Tamara,” Emma says.

Tamara looks uncertainly at her, obviously taking in Emma’s bare feet, her ragged appearance. “I don’t think—”

“He’s _my_ son,” Regina says. “I will climb up there. You may leave, Ms Swan.” She doesn’t look at Emma, but Emma stares at her, sees a woman who is frail, whose bony arms are wrapped around her small body, whose designer slacks probably cost more than Emma’s worldly belongings and hang too long and bunched around her bare feet.

“All due respect,” Emma says, “but you’ve been sitting behind your desk for ten years. I can do this.”

Regina stares at her for one long moment, gaze fierce and intent. For a second, such as short period of time Emma thinks afterwards that she imagined the shift, her eyes drop to Emma’s lips, and then she steps forward, encroaching on her space. Emma can smell her perfume, the heady scent overwhelming her, and she lets in a shuddering breath. “Just bring him to me.” She barely breathes the words, and then turns away, back to Marian and her easy comfort.

And so Emma steps across the threshold of the house she thought she’d never enter again. It’s dark, and the stairs creak in protest as she climbs them. Standing at the top is Cora, clothed in black, arms folded, a smirk playing across her lips. “You will fail,” she says, voice echoing into the hall. “Emma Swan, you’re a failure. A loser. Idiot.”

Somehow the word _idiot_ always sounded fond when it fell from Regina’s lips.

She shakes her head. Cora disappears. The door to Henry’s room is ajar, and gnarled tree branches reach out towards the open window. She looks down, which is a mistake, the ground too far below her, but she rallies, sitting on the window ledge and grasping a tree branch tight, reaching out her feet to steady herself on another branch. Bark scrapes at her skin.

“You think this will make my daughter want to fuck you again,” Cora whispers. “ _Fool_.”

The poison seeps into Emma’s brain, makes her foggy. God, she’s such an idiot, this dumbass kid who stupidly forgot she’s nothing to anyone. The fingers of one hand loosen on the branch and she slips, tightening her grip just barely in time. “Why are you doing this?”

“You were supposed to leave,” Cora says. “All the rest of them did.”

Emma’s voice feels small and weak when she murmurs, “I was going to go.” She’s the worst person in the universe, this weak, pathetic _nothing_ of a human, just as bad as all the rest of them.

“You’ll fail Henry.”

“No.” She realises she has spoken this aloud. Her grasp on the branch strengthens and she heaves herself up, climbing until she is level with the roof. The wind howls, a branch scraping across her cheek. She brushes a hand against it and it comes away painted with a streak of blood.

The metal of the roof is cold beneath her touch. It reassures her, solid and sharp against her skin. She looks straight ahead, at Henry whose legs dangle over the side of the roof and whose shoulders are ruler-straight, and mounts the steeple of the roof. Her knees and feet grip the sloping sides and she shuffles forward. Wind howls, buffeting at her. Thunder rumbles.

“Kid,” Emma says, her voice weak to her own ears. Then louder, “Henry!”

Henry turns, and his eyes are wide and disgusted. “Emma,” he says, voice flat and toneless. “She said you’d gone.”

“Henry, I need you to take my hand,” Emma says, reaching out her left hand to him. “I’ll help you back inside.”

“She told me everything,” he says. He’s still not meeting her eye directly and Emma realises he’s not talking about Regina. “She said—you’re my mother?”

Emma’s voice sticks in her throat. A lock of blonde hair flicks across her face, sticking to her damp skin, and she brushes it away, nearly unbalancing herself in the process. “I—”

“She left you again,” Cora says, appearing to sit beside Henry and placing a proprietary hand on his shoulder. “She’ll always leave you.”

Henry’s shoulders shake.

“I’m here now, kid,” Emma says.

“She hates you,” Cora says in that voice thick and sickening as syrup.

“Kid,” Emma says, more urgently. Lightning cracks in the distance, the flash of light momentarily blinding. She scoots forward. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not going anywhere with _you_ ,” Henry spits.

Cora smiles triumphantly over her shoulder and Emma and that does it. “Fuck this,” she snarls and grabs Henry around the waist, dragging him with her as she performs an awkward shuffle-crawl backwards towards the window. She holds him tight against her; it’s the first time she’s ever hugged her boy, and the tears spill down her cheeks. He’s crying too, and Cora’s there, watching them, goading.

Somehow, and she’s not even sure how, she gets him to the window, where she hopes Tamara at least will be waiting. “I’m going to need you to go first,” Emma says.

Henry looks into the distance and she knows he sees Cora. “Your mom’s desperate to see you safe, kid. Forget about me, hate me if you have to, but your mom—” Her voice cracks.

Slowly, briefly, Henry nods and Emma is able to help him clamber over to the tree, to lower him down to the sturdy branch by his bedroom window. She’s holding his arms and he still refuses to look at her. “Henry,” she says. “Don’t believe her. I love you, okay? So much.” She forces the words from her, hurls them. They’re not enough but they’re all she has that’s worth anything to the kid.

For a moment, he seems to believe her, eyes narrowing. At least, he lets himself be held until Tamara’s arms reach out and clasp him around the ankles, steadying him as his feet reach for a branch, and then helping him through the window.

“You idiot,” Cora whispers and vanishes. Thunder rumbles again in the distance. Emma scrambles from the roof to the tree, taking Tamara’s proffered hand at the window and stumbling through the window, landing with a thud on the carpet. Both Henry and Regina, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding hands, look over at the noise.

“Ms Swan, you’re getting muck all over the carpet,” Regina says. Emma holds her gaze, trying to speak without having to use words. _I’m sorry. I love you. Idiot._ Regina turns away, hand against Henry’s forehead and brushing his wet hair back.

Tamara coughs awkwardly. “I’m going to check on the… outside. Away from here.” She pats Henry on the head and leaves.

Henry has a nasty cut down one arm and his skin is milk pale, especially striking against the darker shade of Regina’s skin. “She forced me to go up there. She’s still here,” he murmurs.

“Darling,” Regina says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “The ghost is a nightmare.”

“She’s not,” Emma says. She pushes herself upright and stands up, limping forward. Her body aches and there’s a smear of blood on the windowsill that makes her want to puke when she looks at it. “I’ve met her. I've spoken to her.” She looks away from Regina, deeply ashamed.

“I’d prefer you didn’t indulge my son’s—”

“It’s your mother,” Emma says, sitting down heavily at Henry’s desk, and Regina gasps and falls silent.

“My grandmother?” Henry asks, looking at Emma. His lips tremble and lines form between his eyebrows. “She told me those things?”

The silence of the mansion is unnerving. Then, Regina says, “ _what_ things?”

And so Henry tells her, recounting the story of a young woman who killed her true love, who let her mother die in pain, who married a man for power and killed her husband when she grew tired of him, who adopted a son to better her image in the small town she ruled over like a queen… “She said you never wanted children,” he says, gulping back a sob. “She said I was a prop for you, like Harry Potter’s broomstick or Percy Jackson’s pen-sword.”

“Henry, my little prince,” Regina says, kneeling in front of him and holding his cheeks between her palms. “You’re the hero in my story.” She kisses his forehead. “I don’t know how to love very well, but I know—it’s not that, not what she did to you.” She pauses. “To me.”

Henry wraps his arms around her, pulling her into a fierce, desperate hug, and Emma slumps against the back of the chair, eyes blurred with tears of her own. Henry and Regina look, through her tear stained eyes, like an impressionist painting. _Mother and Child._ “I love you,” he mumbles into her blouse, over and over again.

“I want an EMT to check out that cut,” Regina says. “There should be an ambulance outside by now.”

“And Emma?” Henry asks. “She’s bleeding.” When Regina nods, Henry stands and holds out a hand to her. Emma takes it, hauls herself up.

In one of her foster homes, she had been given a book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy stories and had become obsessed with them, feeling his depression and anxiety and uncommon desires that seeped through the pages like they were her own. She had imagined the little mermaid feeling like she was walking on knives with every step, had imagined being the little girl with the red shoes who danced until her feet were amputated, had imagined that shard of ice stuck in poor Kai’s eye. _Things aren’t so bad_ , she’d told herself, clasping the book to her chest. She’d lost it in a move and, besides, she had moved on from stories by that point. Now though, the pain in the soles of her feet reminds her of these tales and she wants to scream.

But Henry’s hand clasps hers tight and he looks at her with a tremulous smile and she feels like she can maybe do anything for this kid.

A queasy sense of dread pervades the dark corridors of the house. Shadows haunt the corridors, and Henry’s hand squeezes hers tight at. Regina, walking quickly, tenses at the angry squeal of the steps. And then, she sees her. Standing in the front doorway, is Cora. “Henry, darling,” she says. “You forgive so easily. Too easily.”

“Mama,” Henry whimpers, and presses his face into Regina’s side.

“She’s there, isn’t she?” Regina asks, and Emma sees the fear in her eyes and wonders, not for the first time, how she could have been such an idiot? Regina sets her shoulders back, lips shifting into a stubborn snarl. “We are going to walk right past her like she doesn’t exist. She’s dead, Henry.”

“I _can’t_ ,” he says.

“She twists the truth,” Regina says. “She had done it as far back as I could remember, telling me I misremembered things, that I was lazy and ungrateful and weak, making me doubt my own mind. Her interrupting me and—” she gulps in a breath “—Daniel in that stable led to him falling and fatally hitting his head. I married that _man_ because I didn’t care about anything anymore. I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead but I didn’t kill him, not like she told you. She left a letter for her her older daughter, a story of tragedy, of a young girl forced to give up her child to God-knows-where and then being abandoned to die by her ungrateful second daughter, and the envy Zelena felt—” She stops, draws in a deep breath. “Henry, I adopted you because I desperately wanted a child, and you have been _everything_ to me. I love you.”

“Love is weakness,” Cora says, her lips curving maliciously. Emma’s heart pounds faster and harder than ever before, each thump reminding her that she is alive, that she can love, that she hasn’t been defeated yet.

“Love is weakness,” Henry repeats, though he doesn’t sound certain.

“No,” Regina says, and she’s not looking at Henry when she speaks but at the doorway, at where her mother stands. Emma squeezes Henry’s hand tighter, clenches her other hand into a fist because you might not be able to punch a ghost but it’s not going to stop her trying if it comes to that. “It’s strength.”

Thunder rumbles. Henry’s chin juts out obstinately. He grips both his mothers' hands, sets his shoulders back, and he walks forward, through Cora, onto the front step, where he collapses, Emma catching him just before he hits the concrete. Together, she and Regina carry him to the ambulance, where an EMT helps them lift him onto a stretcher.

“He looks so small,” Regina says, holding his hand. The EMT has patched up the cut and gone to get bandages for Emma’s feet.

“He’ll be alright,” Emma says, reaching out a hand. She freezes before touching Regina’s arm, and Regina looks across at her, her expression hard to read. “Regina, he’s fine, he’s just fainted.”

“I—”

There is a flash of white light, knifing down to the mansion. Emma sees Cora’s figure, silhouetted in the front doorway. Bright flames burst from the tree at Henry’s window, catching the house alight. Orange and red dances in the night sky, and smoke pours from the shattered front windows of the house.

A fervour of noise, of shouting, of phone calls, has broken out as everyone around the house tries to put out the fire, which rages more fiercely than Emma could have possibly imagined. The siren of the fire truck sounds from the distance. Regina just watches, silent and still, as her home burns. Emma might be imagining things, but she thinks she looks relieved, as though a weight has been lifted from her.

“Mom?” Henry tries to sit up, coughing. “Emma? What’s going on?”

Regina turns to him, pulling him into a fierce hug. Emma still faces the fire and so it is that she sees that figure in the doorway, watches it fade until there’s nothing left. “You did it, kid,” she murmurs into Henry’s hair and he squeezes her closer to him.

She looks across at Regina and meets her eye and she thinks that she might be forgiven, seeing the soft smile threatening at the corners of Regina’s lips and the glint of gold in her eyes.

“Thank you for your assistance, Ms Swan,” Regina then says, voice cold and formal. “I think my son needs to rest now.”

Letting go feels more painful than her feet, more painful than the burn on her thigh, more painful than her memories of childbirth. “See you soon, kid,” she says, ruffling his hair.

She limps away, into the inky blackness of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for those who are sticking with this. Again, I have no idea when I will next get a moment/brain space to write the final chapter but I appreciate your comments more than I can say.


	12. In which a Halloween mood makes way for Christmas joy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably pretty obvious this was supposed to be finished in time for Christmas, sorry about that.

_“And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.”_

— _The Little Stranger_ _, Sarah Waters_

“I don’t know what to tell you.” Michael Tillman shrugs. “I have to order in a new motor. Could take weeks to fix this.” He looks dubiously down at the bug, finger following the line of a scrape in the paintwork on its bonnet. “If it’s even worth fixing.”

Emma’s definitely not going to cry over a car. That would be pathetic. “Thanks,” she says, eyes blurring with tears. “You know how to contact me.” She limps out of the auto repairs shop.

“I have a really good Toyota you could get on trade in,” Michael yells desperately after her. “Barely done 60,000 miles.” Emma ignores him.

So.

She’s stuck in Storybrooke for the time being. Briefly, she contemplates hitching out of town, staying in one of the roadside motels until Michael calls to say the bug is back in business, but she knows she’ll never be able to afford those rates, not without a steady income. Granny’s cutting her a good deal at the Bed and Breakfast. “You helped save little Henry,” she’d told Emma, when she’d brought her eggs that morning. “Also, feel a bit sorry for you, moping about the place.”

It’s possible it’s too early in the day for a drink, but it’s not like she has a job right now, and her feet are killing her, the bandages doing little to stop the cuts from rubbing against her boots. She stops at the Rabbit Hole, ordering a beer from the bartender and slumping down onto the stool. It’s been two days since the fire, since saving Henry and the death—if you could call it that—of Cora, and she’s lost. May as well drink.

She’s still there later as the bar fills up with patrons, there to celebrate the end of the working week. She keeps her head down, certain there are still people who’d still like to see her head on the end of a spike. It is there that Tamara finds her. “So you were a bounty hunter?” she asks, sliding onto the stool beside Emma.

“Huh?” Emma looks blearily across at her. Tamara’s dark eyes are intent, serious, and she’s not smiling. “Yeah, for my sins.”

“Michael says you’re in town a bit longer.”

God, this is _such_ a small town. “Just until my car’s fixed. There’s nothing here for me now.”

“What if there was?”

Emma chokes on her beer. “Tamara, are you hitting—”

“Fuck off,” Tamara says, rolling her eyes.

Emma notices that her gaze drifts across the bar to where Gwen is sitting and laughing with Mulan and a couple of women Emma only vaguely recognises from around town. She thinks the woman with the sparkly purple head scarf covering her hair might be the fifth grade teacher at Storybrooke Elementary, perhaps some sort of plant name? Henry had talked about getting her as a teacher the next year. “She’s so _cool_ ,” he’d said. “Last year her class had a mock government for a whole term and Violet Knight got to be the _Attorney General_.” He’d said this like it was the greatest honour to be bestowed upon a person, his eyes sparkling with excitement and voice loud and high. The little nerd.

Her heart twists painfully, and she knocks back her beer.

“Actually,” Tamara continues. “I was going to offer you a job. Gus is moving to Portland and there’s a deputy position opening up.”

“No,” Emma says flatly.

Tamara raises an eyebrow. “Because you’ve got so much going on at the moment?”

“No one wants me here,” Emma says. Her mind flashes to Regina, cold and formal and dismissive, and she takes another swig of her beer.

At this, Tamara scoffs. “Why do you think I’m offering you a job, dumbass?” she says, and then she slides off the stool. Before she returns to her group, she says, “you know, she’s not the only thing this town could have going for it for you.”

“Still not convinced you’re not hitting on me,” Emma yells after her, and Tamara flips her the bird.

That night, when she’s tossing and turning and trying to sleep without ghosts and fire and dark eyes turning cold haunting her dreams, she thinks about Tamara’s offer. She thinks about Storybrooke, with its secrets and bizarre inhabitants and terrible weather. She thinks about its mayor, so beloved by her townspeople, even when they are a little afraid of her. She thinks about how, before she’d ruined everything, she was starting to feel like this could be the place where she stopped searching, stopped running.

The next morning, she stops by the sheriff’s station. “Hey, boss,” she says, putting a takeaway cup of coffee down on Tamara’s desk. “That job offer still up for grabs?”

Tamara looks across at her, and she almost smiles.

And so Emma decides to stick around a while.

She celebrates—if that’s the right word for it—with a grilled cheese and hot cocoa at Granny’s. It’s while she’s sitting at a corner table and reading the local paper that the front door opens, a blast of cold air entering the diner, followed by Henry and his mother.

Emma folds in on herself. _Please don’t see me. Don’t notice me._ Of course, she’s the first person Henry sees and he bounds over, full of energy now he’s not being haunted by the malevolent ghost of his grandmother and get a proper night’s sleep. “Hey, Emma,” he says, shyness overtaking him when he reaches the table, as though he’s suddenly remembered just who exactly she is.

“Hey, kid,” she says, hand twitching with a desire to smooth back his hair or touch his shoulder that feels alarmingly maternal. “You’re looking well.”

“Ms Swan,” Regina says, nodding at her. A silk scarf is wrapped tight around her neck and she places a hand protectively on Henry’s shoulder. He leans back into her touch. “I would have thought you’d have left town by now.”

“Actually,” Emma says, “I’m thinking of sticking around a while. I got a job with the sheriff’s office.”

Regina’s impossible to read, a twitch of her plum-coloured lips the only sign that she’s heard Emma’s response. “Well,” she says, and then turns to the counter. “Ruby, I think we’ll take our order to go.” Ruby hands her a brown paper bag, and Regina turns on her heel.

Henry smiles tremulously at Emma before looping his hand into his mother’s and following her out the door.

Ruby lets out a sigh and sits down beside her. “Tough break, man,” she says.

“I can’t expect forgiveness,” Emma says, sighing. “After what I did—”

Ruby frowns. “You’re both such dumbasses.”

After several days of no Regina, it seems like from that moment on she sees Regina everywhere. Her shopping cart hits Regina when she rounds into the dry goods aisle. Regina glares at her. She is wrangling Mama Odie’s terrifying ginger cat, Louis, when Regina walks past with Henry, who is dressed in his school uniform. She thinks she might see a smirk threatening to break out on Regina’s face, but then she is distracted by Louis trying to remove all the skin from her arm. She returns from her lunch break to find Regina leaving the station, a file of crime statistics under her arm. She almost bumps into her, skin flushing hot and palms sweating when Regina grows frustrated with Emma continually moving in the same direction as her.

“You need to talk to her,” Tamara says, watching Emma flop down at her desk and place her head in hands from the doorway of her office.

“I’m not pushing her,” Emma says.

Tamara rolls her eyes. “Gwen says Regina misses you.”

“Weird pillow talk,” Emma says, and Tamara throws a wad of paper at her.

Emma doesn’t plan to approach Regina, in fact, she plans to spend the rest of her life, exchanging the briefest necessary pleasantries, ignoring the tug and twist in her heart whenever she sees her—or whenever she sees Henry. It’s better for everyone involved, she tells herself.

This plan all goes to crap when, two weeks after the night of the fire, she is heading back to Granny’s after her shift and she sees Henry, sitting underneath the apple tree in front of town hall with his head buried in his knees and his shoulders shaking.

“Mind if I join you?” she asks, and when he shakes his head, she sits down beside him, leaning against the trunk of the tree. Henry sniffles, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, his cheeks dirty with tears. “How’s the new house?” She’s learned through the Storybrooke gossip grapevine (that is to say, Granny) that Regina and Henry have moved into a little house just a few blocks from the elementary school. She’d driven past it once on her rounds and it had looked like a home, rather than a set piece for a horror movie. A good move.

Henry gives her a Look.

“Stupid question,” she says. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” he says. They sit side by side, the ground damp beneath them. Emma wraps her arms tightly around herself and supposes she should be grateful snow hasn’t made it to Maine yet. “You left me again,” he says suddenly, and he sniffs loudly.

“Oh, _kid_ ,” Emma says. She doesn’t know how to explain, how to tell a ten-year-old that she was trying to give him space and how, more than anything else, she was afraid. “I wasn’t sure you wanted—”

“Of course I want to see you,” he says, the _idiot_ remaining unspoken, his mother’s child in every sense of the phrase. “You’re my—what are you?”

She thinks a moment, looking out at the grey of the sky, at the clouds threatening and the light fading. “We could start with friend,” she says eventually. “If you want me to be.”

He smiles at this. “ _Best_ friend.”

Now it’s Emma’s turn to get emotional, eyes welling with tears. She’s cried so much over the past few weeks; she hardly recognises herself. “You need to check it’s okay with your mom that we hang out,” she says, trying to be gentle, trying not to blame Regina. “I don’t think she likes me very much, and I don’t blame her.”

Henry huffs out an exasperated breath. “Adults are dumb,” he says, and Emma shrugs in agreement. “Talk to her.”

“Okay,” Emma says. “I promise.”

“Great,” Henry says, and his voice brightens. “There’s no time like the present!”

Emma looks up to find Regina on the steps of town hall, eyes desperately scanning for Henry. She’s breathtaking in her grey trench coat and ankle boots, with her dark hair bouncing around her shoulders, but Emma wonders if she might have lost weight, cheekbones seeming more prominent than she remembers. She sees Henry and her eyes light up for a moment, dimming only when they fall to Emma sitting beside her. She strides over. “Hi, Mom!” Henry says. “I’m just going to—” his eyes dart around wildly “—go and visit Gwen.”

“I’ll—” But Henry has already run into town hall.

Emma stands and moves towards her and when Regina looks set to follow Henry back in the building, places a hand on her arm, not to hold her back but to entreat her to stay. “Please.”

Regina hesitates, looking down at Emma’s hand, and then gestures at a nearby bench. They sit. “Well?” she asks.

“I’m sorry,” Emma says. “I fucked everything up.”

“Yes.” Regina’s voice shakes when she speaks. “You accused me—I can’t even speak of it.” She twists her hands in her lap, and her next words come out lower and softer. “I don’t know if I can forget what was said.”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” Emma says, and she twists, knees pointed towards Regina, trying to meet the eye of someone who won’t—who can’t—look at her. “We never talked, you know, about us. Together.”

“It was unhealthy,” Regina replies, nodding. Her posture is stiff and tense, a muscle in her jaw twitching. She stares directly ahead. “I took advantage of you.”

Emma laughs at this. “I really didn’t mind,” she says, grinning. “It’s the happiest I have ever been, those weeks with you and Henry. And,” she adds, “I’m not your employee now.”

“No,” Regina says. They sit in silence for a long moment. The sky darkens. Emma’s breath is visible in the chill, like smoke. “I’m not good at forgiveness.”

Summoning up all her courage, Emma reaches out, places a hand on top of Regina’s. Her skin is cold. “Talking isn’t a bad first step,” she says. “Perhaps let me see Henry, for starters.”

“For starters,” Regina says, and she nods. “And then?”

“We keep talking.” She doesn’t dare look across at Regina, can’t bear the idea of seeing rejection in her eyes, but she feels Regina’s soft skin beneath hers and she still hasn’t pulled away.

“Very well,” Regina says. “We keep talking.” She stands. “I should get Henry home.” She walks several steps, before turning again. “I suppose I should tell Michael Tillman he can fix your car now.”

“You _asshole_!” Emma says, but she can’t stop the broad grin from spreading across her face at the incontrovertible proof that Regina Mills didn’t want her to leave town.

Regina almost smiles. “Come to dinner on Friday,” she says. “Henry will be pleased.”

***

The cheerful little wooden villa is blanketed in an obscene number of bright lights, all twinkling merrily. Tinny Christmas music plays from the speakers attached to a plastic Rudolph in the front yard. The front yard is dusted with snow, more falling as Emma stands at the end of the path, flakes catching in her curls. She takes that first step forward. There’s no reason to be nervous, not really. She’s been here before, to Regina and Henry’s new home, has spent hours learning about Henry and talking to Regina about everything and nothing. But now it’s Christmas Eve and Regina is having a gathering and she has invited Emma.

(“Henry would love you to be there,” she had said last week over a cup of tea after dinner, the invitation seeming oddly formal.

“You’d just be putting up with me of course,” Emma had teased.

“Of course.”)

The front door opens, and Henry stands in the doorway, beaming. “Emma!” he yells. “Mom and I made _so_ many cookies.” He makes to run out the door in his socks, but is yanked back.

“If you get frostbite and your feet are amputated, I will not hesitate to say I told you so in my most smug tone,” Regina tells him, and he giggles. “Hello, Ms Swan. Please forgive my son. He is never going to have sugar again.”

Emma smiles, stepping into the warmth and toeing off her boots. Henry takes her coat and then he surprises her with a hug, tight around her waist. “Merry Christmas, kid,” she says. He smells like spices, and the reindeer antlers he’s wearing tickle her nose. “Hey, Regina.” She hands her the bottle of wine she’d spent a good half hour choosing the liquor store that morning. Their hands touch at the transfer, and she fumbles, almost dropping it.

Regina hums approvingly at the vintage. “Thank you.”

“Emma!” Henry says, tugging at her sleeve. “My aunty Zelena is here!”

Emma grins back at him, and then looks across at Regina. She knows Regina was inviting her, had spent days going back and forth on the decision. She’d said as much one Friday when they’d been washing up, Henry having cooked them nachos for dinner that night. “Everyone deserves a second chance at a first impression,” Emma had said, and Regina had flicked her with the tea towel.

“Well, lay on then, Macduff,” Emma says, squeezing Henry’s hand tight in hers, and, at Regina’s eyebrow rising, adds, “what? I went to high school.”

The living room is warm from the fire and smells of pine, thanks to the enormous tree taking up one corner. She smiles across Marian and Mulan sitting in the love seat and talking to the man who edits the newspaper, and notices that Gwen, an arm wrapped around Tamara’s waist, ignores her presence even as Tamara waves over at her. “Aunty Zelena, this is Emma!” Henry says, dragging her across to the red-headed woman seated by the fireplace and clutching a cup of eggnog so tightly Emma is concerned she might crack the glass.  

“Hi,” Emma says, eyeing the drink.

“Non-alcoholic,” Zelena says. She looks well, much better than when Emma saw her last, less skeletal and eyes brighter. The cashmere scarf wrapped around her neck looks like it is much more Regina’s style than Zelena’s own. “Henry, be a darling and get Emily a drink.”

When Henry leaves, Emma says, “I’m glad you’re doing better. Henry’s really excited to—”

“So, Ella,” Zelena says, interrupting. “How long have you been shagging my sister?”

“I—what?” Emma splutters. Why are they standing by the fire? It’s uncommonly warm and she feels sweat form at her hairline.

“Oh, so there’s no coitus yet,” Zelena says. “I imagine sister dear would be a little less uptight. Unless you have performance troubles…” She raises an eyebrow in such an exact facsimile of her sister that Emma is startled for a moment.

“No performance issues!” Emma snaps before she realises that is absolutely not the point, and Zelena actually, literally cackles.

Henry returns, handing Emma a glass of eggnog. “Sheriff Drake said you’d probably like the eggnog with brandy in it,” he says, and then pulls a face.

“I quite agree,” Zelena says, and pulls the same face back at him. Henry giggles and leans into her. It’s sweet really. Zelena might terrify Emma, but Henry seems taken with her, and she with him, and that’s everything really.

“Emma?” It’s Gwen at her arm. “Regina asked if you could help her in the kitchen.”

“Sure!” Zelena laughs at her eagerness.

Gwen stops her in the doorway. “You hurt her again, I’ll break your asshole face.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Gwen—” But Gwen gives her a warning look and returns to Tamara.

“Emma?” Regina calls out for her, and Emma can’t do anything but follow the siren song. She finds her leaning against the kitchen counter, an apron now covering the deep red dress that she’s wearing. Her makeup is softer than usual, and there’s a streak of what looks like nutmeg on her cheek.

“Hey,” Emma says, breathless in the way she always is around Regina. “What do you need me for?”

“Oh,” Regina says, and though the light is dim, Emma thinks she might be blushing. “I just finished making more eggnog, but I thought you might need rescuing from my sister.”

Emma’s heart lightens at this. “Thank you,” she says and she steps forward, placing her eggnog down. “I know you were worried but Zelena’s fine. She’s doing really well with Henry. I’m almost worried I’ll lose my best buddy.”

“I’m glad,” Regina says. She continues to lean against the counter, the only sound the muted conversation from the living room, punctuated by Henry’s squealing, sugar-induced giggles. “He’s so much _lighter_ now,” she says. “I can’t bear the fact that he didn’t trust me.”

“He does now,” Emma says, and she moves to stand beside her, arm brushing against Regina’s own. “He tells you everything.”

Regina bumps her hip against Emma’s. “Archie’s helped,” she says. “And you.”

“He’s a great kid, the best,” Emma says. She looks across at Regina, those dark eyes flickering with light, the curl of hair falling across her forehead. “You have—” She reaches out and brushes away the powdered spice from her velvety brown skin. Regina’s jaw twitches. Her eyelids flutter, lips part.

“Hey, look,” Emma says, and she’s smiling. “Mistletoe.”

Regina looks up to see Emma dangling a packet of bay leaves between then. “You’re such a—” but she is cut off by the press of Emma’s lips against hers. The bay leaves are promptly discarded because Emma’s hands are full, threading through Regina’s hair, trailing down her back and towards the base of her spine. Regina’s body is warm against hers and a thrill shoots through Emma, warming her. A hand snakes between them, Regina’s fingers finding their way beneath Emma’s shirt, tracing patterns against her skin, edging into behaviour Emma thought she might never experience again.

When Emma slides a thigh between Regina’s, pushing up the tight skirt, she lets out a soft, aching moan and Emma’s pretty sure she’ll do anything to coax that sound from her again.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Emma breaks from Regina just enough to look around and see Mary Margaret Blanchard standing in the doorway of the kitchen, a pie in her hands and a very pink-cheeked young man behind her.

“I’m never inviting her anywhere again,” Regina tells Emma conversationally.

Leaning over to kiss her cheek, Emma says, “be nice.”

“I don’t see why,” Regina whines, but then she turns to her former step-daughter. “Mary Margaret, David. Lovely to see you both. Such wonderful timing. Please join my guests in the other room.”

Emma sighs when Mary Margaret and David leave. “Wish we could just stay in here all night.”

Regina smiles, presses herself close to Emma, and whispers, “later,” a promise in her voice that Emma intends to ensure she keeps. She picks up the jug and leaves the kitchen, Emma following her back into the noise and light of the living room.

“Interesting shade of lipstick,” Tamara says, smirking at her, and Zelena holds up her hand for a high five, which Emma pretends not to notice, wiping a hand across her mouth instead, her fingers coming away with traces of pink.

Emma looks across at Regina, who has settled in next to Marian, leaning her head on her shoulder and smiling beatifically at the group of people in her living room. Henry settles in on the floor between her legs. “Come on, Emma,” he says. “Sit with us.”

Regina smiles, threading fingers absently through Henry’s hair. Emma sits on the arm of the couch, hand reaching out and massaging Regina’s shoulder. Henry passes her the leg of a gingerbread man and Christmas songs play softly in the background.

_“...A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight…”_

Henry sings, off key, head drooping against his mother’s knees. Mulan presses a kiss to Marian’s cheek. Zelena barely conceals her disgust as Mary Margaret chatters away to her. Tamara twirls Gwen, where they are dancing over by the tree.

And Regina. Regina looks across at Emma with light her eyes and Emma is pretty sure this is where their story starts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the support and comments, both on this and on my writing over the years <3 I appreciate it deeply. See you around.


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